UK Edition
Children of immigrants from deprived backgrounds are up to twice as likely to have a degree compared to their white peers, but this doesn’t translate into greater employment prospects, research has found.
Second-generation ethnic minorities are “substantially” more likely to achieve higher education qualifications, compared to the white majority, according to a report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS).
Over 50 per cent of Indians and 35 per cent of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have degree-level or equivalent qualifications, compared to 26 per cent of the white majority, the report, published as part of the IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities, found.
Yet, data looking at the position of these groups in the labour market do not match what the researchers would expect given the “typical rewards associated with education”, they said.
For example, Pakistani women – across all education levels – have a three percentage point lower chance of being employed compared to their white counterparts, while Caribbean women have a two percentage point lower chance.
The report used Census data covering a 40-year period to examine outcomes across generations and families.
It focused on Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and black Caribbean ethnic groups, as they are sufficiently represented in the data and have a “long-standing” status in the UK, meaning that second-generation children could be tracked into adulthood, the authors said.
Disadvantages persist across generations
The report stated that second-generation ethnic minority children “tend to grow up in poorer families, reflecting the ways that their immigrant parents are systematically disadvantaged in the labour market”.
“However, second-generation ethnic minorities tend to do much better in terms of educational attainment than one would expect given those more disadvantaged origins,” it added.
“And yet, on moving into work, this ability to succeed in education does not bring the expected rewards.”
The fact these groups are performing well in terms of degree-level education is “striking” as they are “much more likely than those from white UK backgrounds to have been disadvantaged in childhood,” the report added, a factor which is associated with poorer educational outcomes.
Despite this, the employment disadvantage of these groups “persists” as both men and women from most ethnic minority groups have lower employment rates compared to their white counterparts.
“This disadvantage is reduced but not eliminated when we account for disadvantaged family origins,” the report found.
“For example, taking account of social class origins, the employment gap for second-generation Pakistani men reduces from around four percentage points to around one percentage point, and for Pakistani women from around five percentage points to around two percentage points” compared to their white counterparts.
The researchers said this suggests the employment gap is driven by the disadvantages faced by their parents that “persist across generations and are reduced by not eliminated by educational success”.
Another possible explanation for the differences in job success of minority groups is that they may come out with a lower “market value” from their degree, depending on which university they attended, the report found.
Lucinda Platt, professor at the London School of Economics and an author of the report, said: “People who go to some universities may get higher pay than people who go to a less prestigious university…
“That’s part of what is going on here, these qualifications are just not as valuable”.
Although it’s a mixed picture, she said there is data that some ethnic minority groups go to Russell groups less often.
“But, there has been analysis which has shown that even when you take account of the university a person goes to, that there is still an employment disadvantage, particularly for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women,” Dr Platt added.
Mark Franks, the director of welfare at the Nuffield Foundation – which funded the Deaton Review – said: “Whilst a large proportion of people from second-generation minority ethnic backgrounds have achieved high-level academic qualifications, the fact that this has not translated directly into earnings outcomes raises important questions about how the education system and the labour market relate both to each other and to people’s family background and ethnicity.
“Policies designed to improve social mobility and address discrimination should be informed by understanding of how class, ethnicity and gender intersect throughout people’s lives to affect labour market success.”