New research by Oxford University suggests a disturbing trend of discrimination by employers
British people from Bangladeshi or Pakistani backgrounds are around three times as likely to be in poverty as their white British counterparts, according to new research. A briefing by the Centre for Social Investigation (CSI) at Nuffield College, Oxford finds that people from these particular backgrounds are also more likely to have a life-limiting illness or to live in overcrowded conditions.
The new research contributes to a growing picture of disillusionment for Britons of South Asian origin – last year the New Policy Institute found that 44 per cent of Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers living in London were being paid below the living wage.
According to the CSI, there has been great generational improvement in terms of education, and difficulties with the English language have ‘almost completely disappeared’ among second-generation migrants from Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black African and Black Caribbean backgrounds.
However this attainment has not been matched by employment prospects, and ‘continued discrimination in the labour market…cannot be ruled out as a significant part of the explanation for their continuing disadvantage’.
People from Indian backgrounds, in contrast, have ‘largely closed the gap’.
Rates of poverty are 57 per cent for people of Pakistani and 46 per cent for people of Bangladeshi background – compared with 16 per cent for white British people. Data provided by the CSI shows that monthly personal earnings by this group average around 68 per cent of white earnings.
The briefing shows that Bangladeshi-origin Britons have the lowest number of rooms per person and the highest percentage of life limiting illness, both indicators of poverty.
The findings should be of extreme concern to the government, at a time when community cohesion has a direct impact on national security. Iqbal Wahhab OBE, chair of the CSI’s Advisory Board, says that the research ‘highlights a terrible social indictment’ and that Muslim communities alienated by economic deprivation are much more at risk of turning to crime – be that gang violence, theft, or, in a small number of cases, radicalisation.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
39 Responses to “British people with Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds are three times as likely to be in poverty”
Guest
It’s “clear” that you demand a bottom, as you talk about your propaganda about the Other.
And then you make up nonsense about class values, and how Muslims are inferior.
And ohnoes, some communities still exist. Can’t be allowed!
nielsc
I don’t talk about ‘The Other’ and I don’t talk about Muslims as ‘inferior. I don’t give shit for your Post Colonial thinking. The fact is that it’s a problem for some groups of people. It’s worth remembering that as well as there are very successful groups of Turks, Palestinians and Pakistanis in Denmark, there are also groups who doesn’t get it. And why, because there exists great class divisions among the immigrants.
Guest
So you’re saying your post dosn’t exist, as you engage in your PC bigotry and say “groups” of people are a problem. The ones not your 1%, right.
damon
I’m driving around central London and I can see loads of African origin traffic wardens and building site workers.
Cushy jobs like the traffic marshals that oversea the movement of trucks in and out of the site.
But there aren’t that many people who look like Bangladeshis doing this kind of work? Why not – is it the employers who discriminate against them and prefer Africans?
Also, using this kind of daft logic, you’d say that the Green party discriminates against Bangladeshi origin people particularly women who wear niqabs, as there are so few of them in the party.
Oh and what about footballers? Why the preference for African origin people, and even overseas African nationals over British Pakistanis and Bangladeshis?
Guest
So you “see” the Other, and engage in a nice little rant.
Trying to claim everyone’s your sort of bigot.