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British Muslims face worst job discrimination of all groups

British Muslims face worst job discrimination of all groups

Categories: Latest News

Monday December 01 2014

The Independent on Sunday ran a story on the level of employment discrimination faced by Muslims in the UK labour market from a study conducted by researchers at Bristol University.

Using information from the Labour Force Survey, researchers were able to deduce the comparable rate of unemployment across ethnic and religious groups in the UK.

According to the study, Muslim men and women are more likely to be unemployed than the white Christian population and more likely to be unemployed among 14 ethnic groups assessed in the survey.

The Independent on Sunday reports that Muslims are “76 per cent less likely to have a job of any kind compared to white, male British Christians of the same age and with the same qualifications. And Muslim women were up to 65 per cent less likely to be employed than white Christian counterparts.”

“For women, Muslim Pakistanis and a “Muslim other” group were 65 per cent less likely to have a job, with Muslim Indians 55 per cent, Muslim Bangladeshis 51 per cent and white Muslims 43 per cent less likely.”

Dr Nabil Khattab, of Bristol University, who co-authored the study said the level of job discrimination was “likely to stem from placing Muslims collectively at the lowest stratum within the country’s racial or ethno-cultural system due to growing Islamophobia and hostility against them.

“They are perceived as disloyal and as a threat rather than just as a disadvantaged minority.”

“Within this climate, many employers will be discouraged from employing qualified Muslims, especially if there are others from their own groups or others from less threatening groups who can fill these jobs.”

Dr Khattab also pointed to the fluid nature of colour-based discrimination saying “The main components of this discrimination are skin colour and culture or religion. But colour is dynamic, which means white colour can be valued in one case, but devalued when associated with Muslims. Equally, having a dark skin colour – Hindu Indians, for example – is not always associated with any significant penalty.”

Employment discrimination faced by Muslims in the UK has been the focus of a number of studies which single out the ethnic penalty faced by BME communities and the Muslim community in particular.

In a study by the Cabinet Office in 2001, the term ethnic penalty was introduced to signify discrimination faced by minorities in the labour market when controlling for factors such as qualifications.

The study referred to the double dividend returned from tackling under- and un-employment among BME communities by enhancing social cohesion and removing barriers to inequality of opportunity. The report stated: “The aim is to ensure that ethnic minorities do not face barriers to achievement. In ten years’ time, ethnic minority groups living in Britain should no longer face disproportionate barriers to accessing and realising opportunities for achievement in the labour market.”

What has been achieved over a decade since the 2001 report can be gleaned from the analysis in the National Equality Panel report which was published in January 2010 and in the report of the APPG Race and Community in 2012, on BME women and the labour market.

The National Equality Panel report found that “Muslims are paid 13-21% less than their White Christian counterparts of equal qualification”.

The report also found “The white population gets the best returns in terms of wages for a given level of qualifications – all minority groups suffer some form of ‘penalty’…Muslim ethnic groups suffer the largest ‘ethnic penalty’.

The APPG report on BME women found that “Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are particularly affected, with 20.5% being unemployed compared to 6.8% of white women, with 17.7% of Black women also being unemployed.”

And in 2010, economist David Blanchflower took a look at the effects of the recession on young people in the job market; Muslim youth in particular.

He found that “The jobless rate for the least educated young Muslims – those with no qualifications – is even higher, approaching 40 per cent. One encouraging sign is that a considerably higher proportion of young Muslims under the age of 25 are students than is the case for non-Muslims (36 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively).”

With young Muslims represented in the student population in numbers greater than their non-Muslim counterparts, addressing labour market participation and wage differentials is a problem that spans Muslim women and Muslim men of employment age and Muslim youth, as they enter the job market.

Assessing change in this area since the problems of discrimination and unequal treatment were identified in 2001, it doesn’t seem as though much progress has been made. As the problem of Islamophobia persists, its widespread impact, from hate crime to discrimination in the workplace, continues to be felt by Muslims in the UK.

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