ARHIV DRUŽBOSLOVNIH PODATKOV

Ethnic differences in patterns of employment and unemployment: gender and generation - summary

In recent decades there have been marked changes in women’s employment in the UK. Women with higher qualifications are increasingly likely to retain continuous full-time employment during family formation whilst women without qualifications are still likely to leave the labour force when they have children. Cohort comparisons therefore show that the ‘educational differential’ has become wider over time. However, all research so far has been based almost exclusively on white women and that means that policies around employment participation and child-care are inevitably informed by evidence from the white majority rather than recognising the needs of different ethnic groups. Our research set out to identify whether there were differences between women from different ethnic groups. We used nationally-representative survey data as well as unstructured interviews with a small number of women.

There are key differences in patterns of marriage and child-bearing between ethnic groups. South Asian women, particularly Pakistani and Bangladeshi women, are the groups most likely to be married with dependent children. In 2000-2, 47 per cent of Pakistani women and 54 per cent of Bangladeshi women aged 19-60 were partnered with a child under 16 compared with only 17 per cent for Black Caribbean women. Black Caribbean and Black African women are most likely to have a child but no resident partner and South Asian groups the least likely.

Qualifications and life-stage play an important role in predicting women’s economic activity across all ethnic groups. Better-qualified women are more likely to be working than less qualified women in all ethnic groups. However, qualifications have the largest impact on rates of economic activity for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women and the least effect for black ethnic groups. This is consistent with qualitative work that suggests that, for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women, ‘good motherhood’ is associated with staying at home to care for children whilst for black women wage-earning forms an important part of ‘good motherhood’. Well-qualified Pakistani and Bangladeshi women with children face two strongly opposing factors: the pull towards employment of qualifications and the push towards giving up paid work to provide full-time care for children.

Overall, nearly a quarter of women in our study with degree-level qualifications who were in paid work were not in a graduate level job. However, this was significantly higher for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women (36 percent) and Indian women (29 percent) than for other groups, with little difference between levels for White, Black Caribbean and Chinese women with higher qualifications (all about 24 percent).

Minority ethnic groups - men and women - have much higher levels of unemployment than their white counterparts. When analyses control for factors such as age, education, whether UK-born and region of residence, significant differences in levels of unemployment remain. For women, this ‘ethnic penalty’ is highest for Bangladeshis, followed by Pakistanis and Black African women and has changed little over the last decade. Chinese women, however, are distinctive in having levels of unemployment only slightly higher than white women and ethnicity does not appear to have an explanatory role. Women with higher qualifications are less likely to be unemployment and this effect is greatest for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women.

In interviews, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women felt that there were major barriers at job interviews if they wore a headscarf or face veil. They also wanted greater understanding by employers of their religious or cultural needs – for example replacing tea breaks with short breaks for prayer. Guidance and knowledge of the labour market, as well as training schemes and support mechanisms were identified as important in helping Pakistani and Bangladeshi women increase their levels of participation in the labour market.