How did levels of UK hate crime change during and after Covid-19?

Levels of ethnic, racial and sexual harassment in the UK declined during the pandemic. This was largely driven by the reduction of time that people spent in public places due to lockdowns and other social restrictions.

Threatening events, such as pandemics or terrorist attacks, can trigger an increase in racist and discriminatory behaviour. In an earlier Economics Observatory article, written at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, we summarised previous research that shows this link. Here, we analyse recent data from the UK to address whether hate crime rose during the pandemic.

What does research tell us?

A long tradition of research on racist attitudes and discriminatory practices has shown that threatening events – such as terrorist attacks, acute economic shocks and outbreaks of infectious diseases – are associated with greater hostility among racial and ethnic majority group members (‘in-groups’) towards immigrants or ethnic minorities (‘out-groups’) – see Broom and Broom, 2017, on Australian data; Kim et al, 2016, on US data; and Johnston and Lordan, 2016 on UK data.

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, police data and reports from non-governmental organisations revealed dramatic increases in reporting of hate crime against East Asian minorities (see Tessler et al, 2020 and BBC News, 2020, for the United States; and Vancouver Sun, 2020, for Canada).

Police forces across the UK received reports of 267 incidents of hate crime from Chinese minorities during the first quarter of 2020, compared with 375 incidents during the entire year in 2019 (Sky News, 2020).

Experimental research also showed that evoking Covid-19 – by asking individuals to answer a series of questions about the virus – increased the likelihood that experiment participants would choose to grant immigrants lower sums of money in a help or harm task (Bartos et al, 2020, for the Czech Republic).

These reports fit theoretical expectations that during events that heighten the salience of ethnic identities, prejudicial attitudes towards out-group members will grow.

This work primarily draws from data gathered at the onset of the pandemic, before lockdown restrictions were put in place. So while there was an increased risk arising from heightened prejudices, the decline in time spent in public spaces meant that there were fewer ‘opportunities’ for hate crime to occur.

The lockdowns may therefore have offset any increase in hate crime that might have been expected.

Further, the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020 was followed by the powerful Black Lives Matter social movement, which brought increased attention (and in some cases, actions against) discriminatory behaviours.

It therefore remains an open question whether ethnic and racial harassment would increase, decrease or remain stable through the pandemic.

Did levels of harassment change during the pandemic?

To answer this question, we can look at the prevalence of ethnic and racial harassment of minorities in the UK in public places before and during the pandemic.

We expected the incidence to be higher during the pandemic for some groups, particularly those from East Asia – where Covid-19 originated – due to the anti-Chinese rhetoric in the news. This was exacerbated by outright racist comments made by some leaders, such as the then US president.

On the other hand, lockdown measures meant that individuals were less likely to be in public places and hence less at risk of harassment there. The extent of the social restrictions varied throughout the pandemic, but some form of regulation was in place throughout the period for which data are available: January 2019 to May 2021.

As a result, it was not clear whether the overall effect would be an increase or reduction in ethnic or racial harassment.

To assess this, we can use data from a large-scale longitudinal household survey of UK residents, Understanding Society. Within this, adults (those aged 16 and over) are asked if they have been physically attacked in the last 12 months at any of the places listed on a show card.

The list of places includes various public places (bus station, train station, street, commercial places, etc.), home, school, college or university, their workplace or another location.

If respondents said ‘yes’, they were asked what they believed was the reason and could choose from a list of nine protected characteristics (sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, nationality, language/accent, dress/appearance, disability, age). They were also asked similar questions about being verbally attacked or insulted, about feeling unsafe and about avoiding places.

As it is not clear what respondents included in ‘other places’ and because ‘home’ could be interpreted as domestic violence, the analysis focuses on experiences in public places, schools, colleges, universities and workplaces. Combined, these accounted for 90% of reported experiences.

Individuals were identified as having experienced ethnic and racial harassment if they said that they had been physically or verbally attacked or insulted in a public place, school, college, university or workplace, and the reason for which they believed that this had happened was their ethnicity, religion or nationality, language/accent or dress/appearance.

Those identified as fearing ethnic and racial harassment were individuals who said they felt unsafe in these locations and for the same reasons.

Experiences were examined across two periods: before the pandemic (January 2019 to March 2020) and during the pandemic (April 2020 to May 2021).

Ethnic and racial harassment before and during the pandemic

Between these two periods, there was a decline in the proportion of the population experiencing and fearing ethnic and racial harassment. This applied to both men and women in ethnic majority and minority groups (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Percentage experiencing and fearing ethnic and racial harassment before and during the pandemic

Source: Understanding Society

The analysis shows that reports of experiencing and fearing ethnic and racial harassment decreased during the pandemic among all groups. But the differences that were statistically significant (at 5% level of significance) were fear of ethnic and racial harassment among all women, and fear and experience of ethnic and racial harassment among white majority men (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Estimated difference in the likelihood of experiencing and fearing ethnic and racial harassment before and during the pandemic

Source: Understanding Society

We examined whether women in specific ethnic groups experienced this decrease. The decline was most pronounced (and statistically significant) among women who were from white majority, black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups (see Figure 3).

It is possible that the increased discrimination witnessed at the beginning of the pandemic – which was expected to lead to a rise in harassment – was offset by the reduction in time spent in public spaces because of Covid-19 restrictions.

To explore this possibility further, we can look at changes in fear while taking account of predictors of public exposure, such as working outside the home, age and general health.

As Figure 3 shows, the overall drop in harassment remains when accounting for differences in working outside the home across groups and across time periods. But this reduced the difference among Pakistani and Bangladeshi women.

Figure 3: Estimated difference in the likelihood of fearing ethnic and racial harassment before and during the pandemic among women

Source: Understanding Society

The results are similar for white majority men (see Table 1). But these indicators are only rough proxies for time spent in public. As a result, it isn’t possible to confirm that decreased time spent in public spaces is driving these results.

Table 1: Estimated difference in the likelihood of experiencing and fearing ethnic and racial harassment before and during the pandemic among white majority men

	Physically or verbally attacked (in the past year because of their ethnicity, religion, nationality, dress/appearance, or language/accent	Felt unsafe (in the past year because of their ethnicity, religion, nationality, dress/appearance, or language/accent
Models without controls	-0.02 (-0.03, -0.01)	-0.01 (-0.02, -0.002)
Models with controls	-0.02 (-0.03, -0.00)	-0.01 (-0.02, -0002)

Figure 4: (same data as Table 1)

Source: Understanding Society

Sexual harassment before and during the pandemic

Examining levels of sexual harassment before and during the pandemic is another way to determine whether any increase in ethnic or racial harassment was offset by less time spent in public spaces.

The reasoning is that during the pandemic, ethnic and racial minorities represent out-groups who may have been targeted for harassment because their identity was particularly salient. On the other hand, women’s identity as out-group members was unlikely to change during the pandemic.

Consequently, we anticipated that decreased time spent in public spaces should be reflected by fewer reports of sexual harassment and fear.

Individuals were identified as having experienced sexual harassment if they said that they had been physically attacked or insulted in these locations and the reason they believed this happened was their sex. Those identified as fearing sexual harassment said they felt unsafe in these locations and for the same reason.

It is important to emphasise that for comparability with the analysis of ethnic and racial harassment – and to focus on the possible protective effect of lockdowns – only sexual harassment that occurs in public spaces was measured. This did not include domestic abuse, which other studies show increased during the pandemic (Ivandic et al, 2021).

For women, reports of sexual harassment (being physically or verbally assaulted in public places, educational institutions or workplaces in the last 12 months) substantially declined during the pandemic, as did feeling unsafe because of their sex (see Figure 4).

Figure 5: Weighted estimate of proportion of men and women reporting experiencing or fearing sexual harassment before and during the pandemic

Source: Understanding Society

These differences were statistically significant for women (see Figure 5).

As expected, sexual harassment is not a male issue. The proportion of men reporting experiencing sexual harassment is 0.4% or less and of fearing it is 0.6% or less. This compares with 3-4% and 12-18% respectively for women.

Figure 6: Estimated difference in the likelihood of experiencing and fearing sexual harassment before and during the pandemic, with and without controls

Source: Understanding Society

To get a deeper understanding of the role of reduced time in public spaces in driving this drop, we can re-examine the change after adjusting for being employed, age and general health. Doing so shows that as in case of ethnic and racial harassment, the decrease persisted even after controlling for the likelihood of being in public places (see Figure 5).

Conclusion

Reports of experiencing and fearing ethnic and racial harassment, as well as sexual harassment, in public spaces dropped during the pandemic. This decline was seen across gender and ethnic groups.

Due to the anti-Chinese rhetoric at the beginning of the pandemic, and the subsequent possible increase in the salience of ethnic identity (both due to this and the anti-racist movements following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020), we expected reports of ethnic and racial harassment to increase. Sexual harassment was not expected to rise in the same way.

On the other hand, due to the pandemic restrictions on social interactions and being in public places, ethnic, racial and sexual harassment were all expected to decline.

Analysis from the Understanding Society study indicates that the latter had a greater impact. This is reflected in a fall in ethnic, racial and sexual harassment during the pandemic.