Demographics

This chapter will present the estimated size and demography of the Gypsy/Traveller population. Comparisons made to the rest of Scotland exclude Gypsy/Traveller results.

Population size

A total of 3,343 respondents self-identified as Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland’s Census 2022, representing 0.06% of the population.

While the Census aims to count usual residents - those that have lived or intend to live in Scotland for 6 months or more - populations who move around can be more difficult to count. Considerable effort was made to enumerate Scotland’s Gypsy/Traveller, Roma and Showman/Showwoman populations in the census and National Records of Scotland (NRS) worked closely with these communities. However, it should be noted that external organisations working with Gypsy/Traveller communities believe that this number may be much higher. The Scottish Government’s Strategic Anti-Racism policy team report that, “Gypsy/Travellers can be more difficult to count in the census and other surveys, because they move around, [and] feel the need to hide their identities due to fear of discrimination, or feel a disconnect with any benefits from completing these surveys”. In addition, it is possible that the different individuals, families and groups who are usually contained within the umbrella of ‘Gypsy/Traveller’ did not select ‘Gypsy/Traveller’ in the Census as they would prefer to be identified another way.

Age

Census results show that in 2022 the Gypsy/Traveller population was younger than the rest of Scotland.

There was a higher proportion of people in age groups younger than 50 for the Gypsy/Traveller population, when comparing to the rest of Scotland. The biggest difference in age is recorded for those aged 65 and over (see Figure 1), where 10.0% of Gypsy/Travellers are over 65 compared to 20.1% across the rest of Scotland.  

Figure 1: Percentage of Gypsy/Travellers and the rest of Scotland (excluding Gypsy/Traveller), by age

Source: Scotland’s Census 2022

Sex

The Census results showed that there is a roughly even split across sexes for Gypsy/Traveller, similar to the rest of Scotland (Table 2).

Table 1: Percentage of Gypsy/Travellers and the rest of Scotland (excluding Gypsy/Traveller), by sex

Source: Scotland’s Census 2022

Religion

Close to half of Gypsy/Traveller people reported that they did not identify with a religion (44.8%). This is similar to the rest of Scotland (excluding Gypsy/Travellers) where slightly over half of people (51.1%) reported not belonging to a religion (Figure 2).

There was a similar proportion of Gypsy/Travellers reporting they are ‘Roman Catholic’ (13.7%) when compared to the rest of Scotland (13.3%). A higher percentage of Gypsy/Travellers identified as ‘Other Christian’ (13.7%) and ‘Pagan’ (3.8%) than the rest of Scotland (5.1% and 0.3% respectively) (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Percentage of Gypsy/Travellers and rest of Scotland (excluding Gypsy/Travellers), by religion

Note: Due to small sample sizes, the category ‘All other religions’ includes the responses Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and Other religion.

Source: Scotland’s Census 2022

Sexual Orientation

Scotland’s Census defines sexual orientation as “an umbrella term covering sexual identity, attraction and behaviour”. The Scotland’s Census 2022 question on sexual orientation asked people aged 16 and over: “Which of the following best describes your sexual orientation?”. People were asked to tick “Straight / Heterosexual”, “Gay or Lesbian”, “Bisexual” or “Other sexual orientation”. Those who ticked “Other sexual orientation” were asked to describe their sexual orientation in a write-in response.

The majority of Gypsy/Travellers identified as heterosexual or straight (80.0%). For the rest of Scotland, 87.8% reported this (Figure 3).

As can be seen in Figure 3, a slightly higher proportion of Gypsy/Travellers identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or other sexual orientation (LGB+) as well as chose to not answer the question, compared to the rest of Scotland.

Figure 3: Percentage and number of Gypsy/Travellers and rest of Scotland (excluding Gypsy/Travellers), by sexual orientation

Note: LGB+ is the sum of the responses gay or lesbian, bisexual, and other sexual orientation.

Source: Scotland’s Census 2022

Trans Status or History

Scotland’s Census 2022 included a new question on trans status or history for the first time. The question asked: “Do you consider yourself to be trans, or have a trans history?”. The question was voluntary and asked to people aged 16 and over. Overall, 94.1% of all respondents answered the question. Respondents could tick “Yes” or “No” and those who ticked “Yes” were asked to describe their trans status as a write-in response. The write-in responses were then coded by National Records of Scotland (NRS) into categories. More information about the methodology can be read in NRS’ Quality Assurance report - Sexual orientation and trans status or history. The write-in responses received from the Census 2022 for trans status or history can be read in NRS’ table of write-in responses.

The majority of Gypsy/Travellers (90.3%) report not ‘being trans or having a trans history’, similar to the rest of Scotland (93.6%) (Table 2).

A slightly higher percentage of Gypsy/Travellers identified as trans or as having a trans history, compared to the rest of Scotland (2.2% and 0.4% respectively).

Table 2: Percentage and population figures of Gypsy/Traveller and rest of Scotland (excluding Gypsy/Travellers), by trans status or history

Note: Where an asterisk (*) has been placed in the table, the sample size for the statistic is below 100. Caution is advised for interpreting smaller results, because it would only take a small amount of variation in the data to see a large apparent effect on the analysis of the data.

Source: Scotland’s Census 2022