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”
Patrick Nelson
“If you believe that the Prophet (pbuh) rejoiced in many wives and more
slave girls than everyone else – this is in the Holy Koran” …no it isn’t.
Patrick Nelson
Many south Asians are victims of problems in their own communities (such as backgrounds of English illiteracy), but just as many fall foul of widespread anti-Muslim racism, much of which is institutional in nature. There is a lot of negative propaganda against Muslims in circulation and Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Kashmiris find difficulties because of it. I know of many unemployed south Asian Muslims who can’t get a job because they are simply not westernized enough to be seen for their merits rather than through the lens of racial stereotypes.
I have also known more than a few university educated south Asians who graduated in highly employable subjects but who found getting an appropriate job very difficult for the simple fact that they wore a beard. One south Asian applicant for a job in the police was helped by a relative of mine, but despite having all the qualities required of a policeman his application was eventually turned down, he had been told that the fact that he wore a beard and prayed five times a day was “a cause of concern”.
The struggle these people face is reminiscent of the bad old days of “no Jews or Irish need apply” but this time the discrimination is far more insidious.
Mike Stallard
33.50
jj
Its clearly not discrimination, as other groups get on perfectly well. What it can be attributed to is a culture in these groups that hinders progress and is unable to adapt fully to western culture.