Community belonging is measured in several ways: feeling that you belong in your neighbourhood, feeling close to local people, talking with neighbours, trusting residents, or believing that people cooperate. Recent surveys show that belonging is widespread but uneven. In England, 61% of adults felt they belonged strongly to their immediate neighbourhood in 2023/24, while 47% of Canadians reported a strong sense of belonging to their local community in 2021–2022.
The figures below should not be treated as one interchangeable global score. The Community Life Survey 2023/24 measures very or fairly strong immediate-neighbourhood belonging in England. Statistics Canada measures strong local-community belonging. Pew Research Center asks whether people feel close to people in their local community, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports retrospective positive childhood experiences. Survey populations, coverage, fieldwork dates, and question wording differ. The percentages describe associations, not causal effects.
Contents
- How common is a strong sense of community belonging?
- How belonging differs across identity and background groups
- How place, rurality, and deprivation shape belonging
- Neighbour ties and local collaboration
- Community cohesion and neighbourhood trust
- International, economic, and childhood comparisons
How common is a strong sense of community belonging?
England’s latest national measure found that 61% of adults felt they belonged very or fairly strongly to their immediate neighbourhood in 2023/24. That was lower than the 63% recorded in 2021/22. The same 2023/24 estimate represented about 26.8 million adults in England. These figures come from the Community Life Survey 2023/24: Neighbourhood and community.
Canada’s measure was lower when the question was restricted to a strong sense of local-community belonging. In the combined 2021–2022 Canadian Social Survey waves, 47% of people in Canada reported a strong sense of belonging to their community. The Statistics Canada report uses a different question and survey context from England’s neighbourhood measure.
Age differences in Canada were substantial:
| Age group | Strong local-community belonging, Canada, 2021–2022 |
|---|---|
| Ages 15–24 | 44% |
| Ages 25–34 | 37% |
| Ages 35–64 | 47% |
| Ages 65–74 | 53% |
| Ages 75 and older | 57% |
The lowest reported level in these age groups was 37% among Canadians aged 25–34, while the highest was 57% among those aged 75 and older. These are descriptive differences for 2021–2022, not evidence that age itself causes a stronger or weaker sense of community.
How belonging differs across identity and background groups
Within England, women reported a strong sense of immediate-neighbourhood belonging at 63% in 2023/24, compared with 60% of men. Disabled adults reported 58%, compared with 63% of non-disabled adults.
The largest differences in the supplied identity comparisons appeared in sexual orientation and gender identity measures. Neighbourhood belonging was 61% among heterosexual adults, 49% among gay or lesbian adults, 45% among bisexual adults, and 46% among adults in the other sexual-orientation category. Among adults whose gender identity differed from their sex registered at birth, the figure was 45%, compared with 61% among adults whose gender identity was the same as their sex registered at birth.
Reported belonging also varied across ethnic groups. In England in 2023/24, it was 71% among Pakistani adults, 69% among Bangladeshi adults, and 63% among Indian adults. The figure was 44% among Chinese adults and 48% among adults from any other White background.
Religious identity comparisons showed 68% among Jewish adults, 67% among Muslim adults, and 66% among Christian adults. The corresponding figures were 53% among Buddhist adults and 56% among non-religious adults. Each estimate describes the survey response for that group during 2023/24; it does not identify why the groups differed.
Canada’s 2021–2022 data also found a gap by sexual identity: 36% of LGBTQ2+ Canadians reported strong local-community belonging, compared with 47% of non-LGBTQ2+ Canadians. Because the English and Canadian questions use different definitions of community, their percentages should be compared cautiously.
How place, rurality, and deprivation shape belonging
Rural adults reported more neighbourhood belonging than urban adults in both England and Canada. In England, 69% of rural adults felt a strong sense of neighbourhood belonging in 2023/24, compared with 59% of urban adults. In Canada, 56% of rural residents reported strong local-community belonging in 2021–2022, compared with 45% of urban residents.
The Canadian pattern was also visible within provinces. In Newfoundland and Labrador, strong local-community belonging was 65% in rural areas and 48% in urban areas. In Ontario, it was 55% in rural areas and 44% in urban areas.
England’s regional figures were narrower but still varied: neighbourhood belonging was 63% in both the North West and North East, compared with 57% in London. Across local authorities, the 2023/24 result was in line with the England average in 210 authorities, above it in 52, and below it in 34.
Deprivation was associated with a wider gap. Seventy percent of adults in England’s least-deprived decile felt neighbourhood belonging in 2023/24, versus 54% in the most-deprived decile. The figures show a relationship between local deprivation and reported belonging, but they do not establish a causal explanation.
Neighbour ties and local collaboration
Belonging can be expressed through ordinary contact. In England, 69% of adults chatted with neighbours at least monthly beyond saying hello in 2023/24. That was down from 72% in 2021/22. Among 16–24-year-olds, the 2023/24 figure was 45%.
Monthly neighbour conversation also differed by identity. It was 47% among adults whose gender identity differed from their sex registered at birth, compared with 70% among adults whose identity was the same as their sex registered at birth. By religion, monthly conversation was 76% among Christian adults and 74% among Jewish adults, compared with 60% among Buddhist adults and 64% among non-religious adults.
Rural residents were more likely to report this type of contact: 78% of rural adults in England chatted with neighbours monthly, compared with 68% of urban adults.
Conversation is not the same as collective action. In 2023/24, 56% of adults agreed that people in their neighbourhood pulled together to improve it, down from 62% in 2021/22. Only 44% of 16–24-year-olds and 48% of 25–34-year-olds agreed with that statement, compared with 66% of adults aged 75 and over.
These measures suggest that frequent contact and a shared sense of cooperation are related but distinct dimensions of community life. A neighbourhood can have regular informal conversations without residents reporting that people work together to improve it.
Community cohesion and neighbourhood trust
Community cohesion was more common than strong personal belonging in England. In 2023/24, 81% of adults agreed that people from different backgrounds got along well locally, down from 84% in 2021/22. Among younger adults, 78% of 16–24-year-olds and 79% of 25–34-year-olds agreed that their local area was cohesive.
The measure varied by disability, sexual orientation, rurality, and deprivation:
| Group in England | Local-area cohesion, 2023/24 |
|---|---|
| Rural adults | 86% |
| Urban adults | 80% |
| Disabled adults | 77% |
| Non-disabled adults | 84% |
| Heterosexual adults | 82% |
| Gay or lesbian adults | 77% |
| Bisexual adults | 77% |
| Other sexual-orientation category | 74% |
The most-deprived decile recorded 69% local-area cohesion. Across the other deprivation deciles, the figures ranged from 74% to 90%.
Trust was a more demanding measure. Only 25% of 16–24-year-olds and 28% of 25–34-year-olds said that many people in their neighbourhood could be trusted in 2023/24. The rural–urban difference was larger than for cohesion: 57% of rural adults said many neighbourhood residents could be trusted, compared with 37% of urban adults. Trust was 18% in the most-deprived decile, compared with a range of 23% to 63% across the other deciles.
Together, the results distinguish three ideas that are often treated as synonyms: getting along, pulling together, and trusting many neighbours. The survey percentages were highest for local cohesion and lower for cooperation and trust.
International, economic, and childhood comparisons
Pew Research Center’s spring 2023 survey asked whether adults felt close to people in their local community. Across 24 countries, the median share answering positively was 78%. In the United States, 54% of adults felt close to people in their local community. The U.S. comparison is reported in Americans are less likely than others around the world to feel close to people in their country or community, while the wider country comparison appears in Global views of connectedness to community, country and the world.
South Korea had the lowest local-community closeness in the 24-country Pew survey at 50%. Nigeria, Indonesia, and India were each around nine-in-ten. In Argentina, 73% of adults with more education felt close to their local community, compared with 55% of adults with less education. These results use Pew’s closeness measure and should not be read as direct equivalents of England’s belonging rate or Canada’s strong-belonging rate.
Economic and social circumstances were also associated with Canadian belonging in 2021–2022. Strong local-community belonging was 38% among Canadians who had experienced discrimination or unfair treatment in the previous five years, compared with 51% among those who had not. It was 35% among people looking for paid work, compared with 45% among those working at a paid job or business. Among Canadians whose main activity was volunteering, the figure was 69%.
Financial hardship showed another difference: 36% of Canadians in households that had difficulty meeting basic needs during the pandemic period reported strong local-community belonging, compared with 49% of those without that hardship.
Belonging can also be considered retrospectively through childhood experiences. In a four-state U.S. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System analysis covering 2015–2021, 71.8% of adults reported feeling a sense of belonging in high school as a positive childhood experience. The CDC report also found that 59.5% reported enjoying community traditions as a positive childhood experience. These are retrospective adult reports, not measurements of current neighbourhood belonging.