The Colombian community in London - Geography - Queen Mary ...

employment experiences, living arrangements and links with homelands. The survey was
carried out by a team of Latin American community researchers who utilised a range of entry
points including existing contacts, community organisations and snowballing to conduct a
purposive sample that was broadly representative of the wider community (McIlwaine et al.,
2011).
PROFILE OF COLOMBIAN MIGRANTS IN LONDON
From the survey of 249 migrants carried out between 2009 and 2010, there were slightly more
women than men (54% and 46%) included. In terms of age, most migrants were in the
economically active age brackets, especially between 30 and 49 years (54%). Colombian
migrants are well educated in that more than half (54%) had some form of university education
with 16% having postgraduate level. An additional 12% had post-secondary technical
qualifications. In turn, only 3% had only primary or less (see Figure 1). Despite high education
levels, however, a quarter did not speak English well (24%), while 2% understood none. Only
half reported speaking English very well.
Figure 1: Highest education level attained
Source: Questionnaire survey (N=248)
In terms of marital status, just over a third of Colombians were single, while 30% were formally
married, with a further 9% cohabiting. In addition, 14% were divorced (the highest of all Latin
American groups included in the larger survey), while 7% were separated, and 6% were
widowed. While 59% were married to other Colombians, it is significant that 16% were
married to a British person, 13% were married to another Latin American, and 13% to
someone from another country of the world.
Acknowledging that race and ethnicity are open to wide variations in interpretation between
Colombia and the UK, 44% of Colombian identified as white/Spanish in terms of their ethnic
group with another third stating they were mestizo/mixed. In addition, 12.5% identified as
Latino with 2% stating they were British Latino (see Figure 2).
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