Patterns and trends in ethnicity inequality and difference

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