Ethnic Inequalities in Work and Employment
Proportion on men aged 16 to 64 who were unemployed was highest in other black – 17% – white and black Caribbean – 16% – Caribbean – 17% ethnic minorities
Highest rates of unemployment for woman were in Arab – 64%, Bangladesh – 61%, Pakistani – 60% and traveller community – 60% ethnic groups
Those in employment, men from Pakistani – 57%, black African – 54% and Bangash – 53% ethnic groups were most likely to work in low skilled jobs
Woman who are Irish travellers are more likely as 71%, Bangladeshi – 67%
Less evidence of less favourable treatment of people from many ethnic minority backgrounds in recruitment processes from a number of studies
Wood et al (2009) found that discrimination in favour of white names over equivalent applications from candidates from a number of ethnic minority’s groups was 29%
Standardised application forms were used in 79% of public sector applications compared to 6% in private sector which may suggests unfair practices in the private sector
Health and Yu (2005) examined the evolution of ethnic penalties using data from general household survey and the labour force survey
For men, they found that first generation black, Indian and Pakistani migrants faced significant ethnic penalties in terms of access to professional/managerial jobs
While subsequent generations have invested heavily in increasing their skills, direct labour market discrimination still exists
According to Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2007) is evidence that some ethnic minority graduates, particularly woman are finding it harder to gain higher-level positions in their occupations
Battu and Sloane (2004) argue that ethnic minorities in employment are more likely to be overeducated than the white group in UK
Follows that employment rates might not give a complete indication of the welfare of particular groups if those groups are doing jobs for which they are overeducated
Davidson (1997) used concrete ceiling to describe the embedded discrimination that prevents ethnic minority woman being promoted
While white woman may face a glass ceiling or an invisible barrier that obstructs their journey to the highest levels of professions, woman form ethnic minority groups report their journey being difficult
Obstacles that ethnic minority woman face have been called the concrete ceiling while white woman have, the opportunity to break through the glass ceiling, the concrete ceiling is impenetrable
Ethnic Inequalities in Income and Wealth
Office for national statistics (2014) around 2/5 of people from ethnic minorities live in low-income households, twice the rate than for white people
Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2007) also found that all ethnic minorities continue to have lower earnings than comparable white groups with large earning differentials experienced by black African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups
Men from each ethnic minority earn at least 10% less than the comparable white group with black African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi men experiencing more than 20% earnings deficit
For woman, differentials were around 5% for most
Earning deficit was highest for black African woman at 18%
National equality panel (2010) showed that there are considerable differences in median total wealth between different ethnic households such as white British households had the greatest level of wealth in 2006/8 on average at £221’000
Rowlingson and McKay (2012) controlled for differences in occupational class to consider the particular effect of ethnicity on wealth inequality
Their research findings revealed that white British people in managerial occupations had greater wealth than other ethnic groups in the same positions but white British people in intermediate and routine non-manual positions had less wealth than Asian or Indians
Black or black British or black Caribbean people had considerably lower levels of wealth than other ethnic groups after controlling for occupation
Joseph Rowntree foundation (2007) found that Bangladeshi ethnic group experience the significant income inequality and are consistently the worst off
Highest poverty rates of all groups and only 25% have incomes that are among the top half of incomes overall
Ethnic Inequalities in Poverty
Half of all minority children live in poverty
General household survey for 1991-2006, Evandrou (2000) explored the poverty of older people and how it varied by ethnicity
Found that the white elderly had the lowest levels of income poverty followed by Irish, then black Caribbean and Indian elderly with 60% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi were in income poverty
Runnymade report Ready for retirement? In 2010 found that ethnic minority groups are up to 3x more likely than white people to experience poverty in retirement
The report found that any older people from ethnic minority groups mainly recent migrants, so they face language barriers as well as difficulties accessing information and navigating an unfamiliar and complex pensions system
Flaherty et al (2004) suggests a number of reasons for high rates of poverty among ethnic minority groups:
- Members of ethnic minority households are more likely to be unemployed compared to whites
- Ethnic minorities used to work in the manufacturing sector and these jobs have significantly declined over the last few decades which leads to many ethnic minorities becoming unemployed
- Ethnic minorities are concentrated in low skilled and low paid work
- Educational disadvantage is a contributory factor to lower than average pay and could explain why they remain poor
- Ethnic minorities find it difficult to escape poverty as they tend to live in deprived areas where there is a lack of jobs and quality of schools is poor
- Ethnic minorities are likely to live in poor-quality, overcrowded and damp housing which has a negative impact on health
- Ethnic minorities can end up poverty as a result in difficulties with the benefit system
Alcock (1997) argue ethnic minorities experience material deprivation and this leads to social exclusion
He claims that deprivation in housing, health and education adds significantly to the financial inequality of black people in Britain, so they remain important despite the introduction in 1960s
He argues that material deprivation maybe further exacerbated by racial harassment so they can have an effect of making ethnic minorities feel even more isolated
Ethnic Inequalities in Social Mobility
Platt (2005) researched intergenerational social mobility of ethnic minorities over time by examining the office of national statistics longitudinal study
Researched closely where ethnic minorities were located in the occupational structure in 1971 then positioned in 1991
She found that if you have a higher occupational attainment these achievements in the first generation, Indians were able to maintain these in the next generation
In contrast, relative occupational position of Caribbean’s had slipped by 1991
She also reported that occupational position of woman from the ethnic minority communities was more dependent on their origins than it was for men
Analysed the 2001 census for ethnic minorities and found that Caribbean’s, black African, Indians, Chinese and others experienced upward occupational mobility relative to the white UK born after origins had been taken into account
Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups performed less well in terms of occupational achievement
Examined information on religion from the 2001 census and reported that some diversity existed within south Asian groups in pattern of educational performance such as Indian group, Hindus outperformed Sikhs and Muslims
According to the centre of dynamics of ethnicity (2013) said ethnic minorities in Britain are experiencing increasing absolute upward mobility with growth in clerical, professional and managerial employment
Still face significant barriers to enjoying similar levels of social mobility
Health and Li looked at 40 years of data and found that 43% of white men and 45.6% of white woman had experienced upward social mobility when compared with their fathers
BAME groups had significantly lower rates of upward mobility such as 34.3% of Bangladeshi men had improved their social class
Pakistani and Black-Caribbean young people still significantly under achieve in education especially at GCSE
Black boys are 3x more likely than white pupils to be excluded
Ali suggests that for BAME woman these barriers constitute a concrete ceiling
She notes that white woman has opportunities to break through the glass ceiling but BAME woman this ceiling impenetrable
Health
In 2013, joseph Rowntree foundation reported that persistent inequalities could be seen in the health of Pakistani and Bangladeshi woman whose illness rates have been 10% higher than those of white woman in 1991, 2002 and 2011
Reported in 2008, that infant mortality rate of babies from Pakistani and Caribbean communities born in 2005 was twice as high as that among white babies
Education
Chinese and Indian pupils do very well in school, but evidence suggests that Pakistani and black Caribbean young people still have lower GCSE attainment levels than most other ethnic groups as they have significantly improved since 2007
More than half of children from Asian households are eligible for free school meals
Children who are eligible for free school meals are far less likely to achieve expected outcomes for key stage 1-4
African Caribbean’s boys are 3x more likely to be permanently excluded from school than white pupils