Sociology - Topic 2A patterns of ethnic inequality

What do statistics show about the correlation between life chances within work and employment and ethnicity ?

• Being a member of an ethnic minority group

• Is likely to lead to lead to lower life chances within work and employment

• HOWEVER , IT WOULD BE MISLEADING TO REGARD ALL ETHNIC MINORITIES AS PERPETUAL LOSERS IN THE JOB MARKET

What did Modood argue in terms of economic differences ?

• Concluded that economic differences between minority groups have become more important than the black and white divide

What did Modood et al argue about economic differences and racial dualism ?

• Found that not all ethnic minorities experience the same level of disadvantage 

• Economic differences between minority groups (E.G. Indian VS Pakistani communities ) are now more significant than just the black and white divide.

• This led researches rot reject the ‘‘racial dualism model - the idea that society is simply divided by white people and all other ethnic minorities.

What does Platts research focus on ?

• Focuses on differences in earnings per hour in a correlational study focusing on ethnicity and gender

What did Platt’s findings show ?

• The pay for British women was greater than that of : Pakistani , Bangladeshi , and black African women

• But lower than that of Indian , black Caribbean and Chinese women.

What did Platts find about rates of pay among male ethnic groups ?

• White British had the third highest rate of pay behind : Indian and Chinese men who had higher rates of pay than other ethnic groups.

What does professor sue argue that ethnic minorities are subject to ?

• Micro aggresions

How can racism take effect in the job market today , in accordance to professor Sue’s study ?

• Overt racism may be rarely seen today 

• HOWEVER 

• There still remain stereotypes and racist assumptions that lead to problems for minorities in the job marker and elsewhere.

What question does Professor Sue outline is still being continuously asked in todays society ?

• ‘‘Where are you from ?’’ OR ‘‘ Where are you really from ?’’

• It is asked to minorities on the basis of skin colour

• DESPITE THE FACT THAT 70% OF BRITISH MINORITIES ARE BORN IN THE UK

What does Professor Sue argue about the question ‘‘Where are you really from ?’’ 

• Passive aggressive question

• Makes the individual feel an ‘outsider'

• Overtime will lead to questions over nationalism and belonging.

What did TUC find about racism in their research ?

• 27% of ethnic minorities had experienced racist jokes or banter 

• 26% had been made to feel uncomfortable at work due to for example people using stereotypes or commenting on their appearance.

What did the Joseph Rowntree foundation discover ?

• People from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds are more likely to be self employed 

Why did the Joseph Rowntree foundation argue this was the case about Bangladeshi and Pakistani self employment ?

• A result of being forced into self employment 

• Due to racism in the recruitment system 

• Those who are self-employed may find it hard to cover costs such as : Sick pay , holiday pay and have a lower average wage than other groups

What did Davidson study ?

• The concrete ceiling which can be defined as : a barrier associated with minority women that prevents them from making it far in the office workplace.

What does Davison say when it comes to the concrete ceiling VS the glass ceiling ?

• Some women are able to break through the glass ceiling 

• But it is INCREDIBLY difficult for minority women to break through the concrete ceiling

• This is because they have to deal with both racism and sexism

What did Rollock’s 2019 report find ?

• Black women only make up 0.1% of active professors compared with the 68 % who are white men. 

What did the Runnymede trust find ?

• Only 15 black academics in the British university system perform senior management roles.

What did a guardian newspaper poll in 2018 find ?

• 60% of ethnic minority respondents in the survey believed they had been overlooked for promotion 

• Compared with 

• 35% of white people

What did Brown and Gay carry out ?

• Experiments to see who got job interviews.

What did Brown and Gay do to see who got job interviews ?

• They sent applications with identical qualifications 

• On each application they put a ‘Black name’ a ‘white name’ and an ‘Asian name’.

• The ‘white’ candidate got twice as many interview offers as the others

• This suggests there is CLEAR racial bias in recruitment and they advocate for nameless applications

What did the Sewell report find about unemployment rates ?

• Unemployment rates were significantly higher

• FOR PEOPLE OF : black , Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds 

• They particularly noted the under-representation at the very top of the ladder

What term did Heath and McMahon coin and what does it mean ?

• ‘ethnic penalty’

• To refer to the various sources of disadvantage that might lead an ethnic minority group to fare less well than similarly qualified white people.