Effects of unemployment on different ethnic groups

Dr Carolina Zuccotti and Professor Jacqueline O’Reilly analysed census data on 57,385 people aged 16-29 in 2001 in England and Wales to study the long-term effects of unemployment on young people of different ethnicity.

Our researchers used data from the ONS Longitudinal Study on 57,385 people in England and Wales, aged 16-29 in 2001 and then followed up in 2011 when the participants were 10 years older, and so aged 26 to 39. The focus was on individuals who arrived as children or grew up in the UK.

The aims of this research project were to:
> determine the impact of being out of work on future employment prospects
> consider factors such as growing up in a poor neighbourhood and having limited education
> establish the extent to which effects varied for young people from different ethnic minorities.

The headline findings included:
> Being out of work can significantly cut the chances of finding a job a decade later, with white men among the hardest hit.
> Of white British young people who were not in work or in education in 2001, only 59 per cent of men and 50 per cent of women were employed in 2011.
> In contrast, more than 93 per cent of men and around 85 per cent of women who were studying or working in 2001 had a job in 2011.
> The effect of being out of work or education in 2001 also reduced young people’s chances of having a professional or managerial job in 2011, with only 23 per cent of white British men and 19 per cent of women achieving this – while the average probability of achieving this position for the entire population under study was more than 40 per cent.
> When factors such as growing up in a poor neighbourhood and having limited education were excluded, people who were not employed or in education in 2001 were 18 per cent less likely to be employed in 2011 than those who were employed.
> People from ethnic minorities were affected to a different extent. Men from south Asian ethnic minorities were less affected by previous unemployment or inactivity than white men – of those who were not in work or education in 2001, 78 per cent of Indian ethnicity and 65 per cent of Pakistani and Bangladeshi were employed in 2011, compared with 59 per cent of white British men.
> When factors such as growing up in a poor neighbourhood and having limited education were excluded, south Asian young men who were not in work or in education in 2001 were between 5 per cent and 10 per cent more likely to be employed in 2011 than their white British counterparts.
> Women from ethnic minorities in particular, Pakistani and Bangladeshi, had lower employment levels in 2011 as compared to the white British, even after individual and class background characteristics are taken into consideration. While discrimination might be a factor, cultural values might well play a part in this finding.

Findings were presented at the British Sociological Association’s Work, Employment and Society conference which took place at the University of Leeds on 7 September 2016.

Publications and press
British white men 'among hardest hit', research finds, The Telegraph, 7 September 2016