Ethno-religious identities and persisting penalties in the UK labor market

Abstract

a b s t r a c tMost studies of minority group penalties in the UK labor market have focused on groups classified by their self-assessed ethnicity only, without taking into account major divisions within such groups, notably by religion. Using a large sample taken from the quarterly Labor Force Survey, this paper analyze levels of both unemployment and obtaining posts within the salariat for fourteen separate ethno-religious groups. Estimates of both gross and net penalties are derived, the latter taking the individuals' human capital resources into account. They show that most non-White groups face an employment penalty, but Muslim groups -both men and women -experienced the greatest penalties. These penalties are exacerbated when searching for any job turns into searching for a managerial or a professional job suggesting that inequality is preserved through mechanisms of color and cultural racism which intensifies as minority workers seek jobs at the more lucrative end of the labor market -which, if persistent, could have long-term implications for the cohesion of the UK's multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society.

Ethnic, Religious and Gender Differences in Intragenerational Economic Mobility in England and Wales

“…The persistent disadvantage affecting, particularly, the 2011 cohort identified here -most of whom (at least in the Black Caribbean group), will have been born in the UK -offer little confidence in this as an explanation. Rather, these findings would appear more in keeping with work exposing the 'ethnic penalty' which continues to affect the access of minority groups to employment (Ashe and Nazroo, 2016;Battu and Sloane, 2002;Castilla, 2008;FRA, 2017;Heath and Cheung, 2006;Khattab and Johnson, 2015;Maume, 1999;Rafferty, 2012), education (Boliver, 2016;Zimdars et al, 2009) and elsewhere (Borjas, 2006;Heath and Smith, 2003;Longhi and Platt, 2008;Platt, 2005), and the ways in which persistent racism limits access to positive socioeconomic outcomes including social mobility (Virdee, 2006).…”

“…It has been argued that the inconsistency identified in existing research is explained by approaches which attempt to use ethnicity to explain what is largely a religious, specifically Islamic, effect (Heath and Martin, 2013; Johnson et al, 2010; Khattab, 2009, 2016; Khattab and Johnson, 2015; Longhi et al, 2013; Platt, 2005). Existing research also draws attention to the need to examine more effectively gender variations in economic experiences both within and between ethnicities (Clark and Drinkwater, 2007; Kapadia et al, 2015), including the ‘particularly strong religious penalty’ affecting Muslim women (Cheung, 2014: 140; Heath and Martin, 2013; Longhi and Platt, 2008; Platt, 2005; Shaw et al, 2016; Stevenson et al, 2017).…”

Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice? The Effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic Behaviors and Attitudes

“…Negative attitudes toward Islam are similarly reflected in public opinion data. less likely to be employed, and Muslim women up to six times less likely, than their White, non-Muslim counterparts (Khattab and Johnston, 2015). A government report concluding that "Muslims experience the greatest economic disadvantages of any group in U.K. society" attributed part of this disadvantage to discrimination in the workplace (Stevenson et al, 2017).…”

Visible minorities in the Canadian Labour Market: Disentangling the effect of religion and ethnicity

“…The descendants of immigrants continue to experience higher rates of economic inactivity and unemployment, higher concentrations in lower status occupations (Heath et al., 2008). And while controlling for demography (age, marital status and children in the household) and human capital (qualifications) has been shown to somewhat reduce these differences, a substantial portion of the gap persists and remains unexplained (Khattab and Johnston, 2015). Some researchers have termed the unexplained portion of the gap ‘ethnic penalties’, and argued that these differentials are best explained by discriminatory employment practices (Carmichael and Woods, 2000).…”