Nabil Khattab

Ethnicity and Female Labour Market Participation: a New Look at the Palestinian Enclave in Israel

The enclave model and the cultural model have often been used by sociologists to explain the patterns of participation of minority women in western labour markets. While the cultural models explain, in general, the mechanisms that restrict womens employment, the enclave models, by contrast, explain the mechanisms that facilitate womens labour market participation. Using data from the 1995 Israeli population census and assuming these theoretical models, this paper aims to examine the labour market participation pattern of three groups of women in Israel: the Muslim-Arabs, the Christian-Arabs and the Druze-Arabs. The results indicate that the participation of Arab women in the Israeli labour market is determined primarily by their ethnic and religious affiliation, education (particularly post-secondary and academic education), marital status and age. By contrast, the ethnic enclave was found to exert a differential influence: its influence on the labour market participation of Muslim women was positive, while for Christian women it exerted a negative influence. The effects of labour market opportunities on female labour force participation are also discussed.

Ethno-religious categories and measuring occupational attainment in relation to education in England and Wales: a multilevel analysis

It has been suggested that ‘ethnic penalties’ exist in British labour markets, whereby members of ethnic minority groups fail to get into occupations commensurate with their qualifications. Often these analyses of occupational attainment by education treat minority groups as homogeneous, not recognising that in several there is substantial heterogeneity on other criteria, such as religion, which may also influence occupational attainment. We argue that there are significant variations among these ethno-religious minorities regarding their labour-market performance, which is measured using a continuous scale of skill-level distances—a measure of returns to education.

Ethnicity, Class and the Earning Inequality in Israel, 1983-1995

This paper focuses on the role of ethnicity and class in generating earnings inequality in Israel. Unlike previous studies on inequality of opportunities in Israel, in this paper I compare the earnings of five ethnic groups: European Jews (Ashkenazi), Asian-African Jews (Sephardi), Muslim Palestinians, Christian Palestinians and Druze Palestinians. In addition, both men and women are taken into account. The analysis, which is based on data obtained from the 1983 and 1995 Israeli population censuses, has revealed that in Israel, class variations resulting from the differentiation of employment contracts in the labour market, appear to have played a much more important role over time in producing earnings inequality. However, at the same time, it was found that class in this context is highly related to ethnicity, thereby suggesting that class and ethnicity are interwoven. While it seemed that to some extent, class plays a similar role among men and women, the role of ethnicity among men was much more central than it was among women, in the allocation of people into class positions.

Ethnic and religious penalties in a changing British labour market from 2002 to 2010: the case of unemployment

Most analyses of ethnic penalties in the UK labour market focus on one source of minority-group disadvantage only: colour racism, based on peoples self-identified ethnicity. Some authors have argued that operating alongside those penalties, and in general exacerbating them, are further disadvantages reflecting cultural racism: in the UK it is argued that particular religious groups suffer these additional penalties—especially Muslims. A number of studies have confirmed the presence of these two types of disadvantage, but almost all of them have used cross-sectional data only and so were unable to test directly whether the penalties are more severe at times of economic recession and growing cultural tensions—such as those experienced in the UK after 9/11 and 7/7. This paper provides clear evidence of both the anticipated dual penalties and their increase at the end of the decade, using a very large annual cross-sectional survey for the years 2002 to 2010.

Explaining Ethnic Differences: Can Ethnic Minority Strategies Reduce the Effects of Ethnic Penalties?

Some social scientists are sceptical of the explanatory power of ethnicity and seek to explain ethnic differences by references to non-ethnic factors such as discrimination. We challenge this scepticism by considering two theoretical objections: there is no such thing as ethnicity and ethnic categories are unable to explain social processes; and by showing how ethnic strategies affect outcomes that cannot be captured in standard ethnic penalty analyses, we offer a new way to examine ethnic penalties in unemployment. We calculate a set of net ethnic penalties and then analyse longitudinal labour-force data to examine how strategies such as self-employment change ethnic penalties in unemployment amongst six different ethnic groups in Britain. The results show that self-employment reduces the ethnic penalty for Indians, Pakistanis-Bangladeshis and others, but not for Blacks, White-Others and White-British. This supports the argument that ethnicity can provide an explanation for some of the ethnic differentials in the labour market.

‘Winners’ and ‘losers’: the impact of education, ethnicity and gender on Muslims in the British labour market

Utilizing the Samples of Anonymized Records from the UK 2001 Census, this article presents an analysis of the differential experiences of Muslims in the British labour market as both minority- and majority-group ethnicities in Britain. Using multinomial modelling, this article examines the class distribution (using the NS-SEC scheme) given levels of education and gender. The analysis of ethnicity, age, gender, marital status and number of children in relation to employment suggests that there are no universal characterizations that can be founded on any of these independent variables. Although Pakistanis dominate the demographic profile they are not likely to suffer the greatest. Muslim Black Africans experience harsher conditions and it could be argued that there is an ethnic colour penalty that is greater than the ethnic religion penalty for Muslims. The forces of colour racism remain omnipotent, even when testing for the impact of religion on patterns of employment inequality.

Economic activity in the South-Asian population in Britain: the impact of ethnicity, religion, and class

Abstract This paper expands the existing literature on ethnicity and economic activity in Britain by studying the impact of religion and class. It argues that while the class location of the different South-Asian groups is important in determining their labour market outcomes, it does not operate independently from ethnicity; rather it is highly influenced by ethnicity in the process of determining the labour market participation of these groups. We use data obtained from the 2001 UK Census on Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi men and women aged between twenty and twenty nine. Our findings confirm that class structure of the South-Asian groups is highly ethnicized, in that the ethno-religious background and class are interwoven to the extent that the separation between them is not easy, if not impossible.

The Impact of Spatial Segregation on the Employment Outcomes Amongst Bangladeshi Men and Women in England and Wales

Studies of ethnic residential segregation and its impacts on labour market performance have reported both negative and positive outcomes for different groups in different geographies. We revisit the issue with a particular focus on the Bangladeshi minority in England and Wales using both quantitative and qualitative data to explore the impact of living in segregated areas upon their labour market outcomes. We analyse the 2001 UK Census Controlled Access Microdata Sample (CAMS) and a subset (34 Bangladeshis) of qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews with 73 men and women from Indian, Bangladeshi and Black Caribbean backgrounds in 2005. Our quantitative analysis does show a clear negative impact of living in segregated areas (i.e. Bangladeshi ethnic enclaves) on unemployment, economic inactivity and on the occupational returns on education. Qualitative material suggests that cultural and practical reasons very often lead Bangladeshis, including highly qualified persons, to live in enclaves or nearby. Also, ethnic businesses in enclaves appear to offer jobs to many Bangladeshi men and women, but these jobs are normally low-paid that does not require high qualifications increasing the risk of lower occupational returns further.

How and when Do Educational Aspirations, Expectations and Achievement Align?:

This paper proposes a new typology of educational aspirations, expectations and achievement. This typology is derived from combinations of aspirations, expectations and achievement, creating eight possible combinations of aligned and irregular profiles. To devise this new typology, data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) panel survey and matching administrative data from the National Pupil Database (NPD) was utilised. These data were collected in 2004 from a sample of 15,770 young people (YP) aged 13 to 14 attending 647 different schools in England. This study demonstrates that aspirations, expectations and achievement do converge amongst some students; but for most young people they do not always intersect. Many young people succeed academically, but without necessarily developing high aspirations or high expectations. For one out of every five young people, high aspirations and high expectations do not lead to academic achievement. The findings in this paper provide a distinct analytical framework for further research and policy development in this area.

East-European immigrants responding to the recession in Britain: is there a trade-off between unemployment and over-qualification?

ABSTRACT Most studies demonstrating the vulnerability of labour migrants following the recession have focused on unemployment. This article examines how the labour market performance of East-European workers in the U.K. has been affected by the recession by focussing on four possible employment outcomes: unemployment, self-employment, over-qualification and part-time jobs. By showing the relatively low rates of unemployment amongst East-European migrants, which have become even lower following the recession, it argues that the vulnerability of immigrants in periods of economic downturn cannot always be solely measured in higher rates of immigrant unemployment. Labour migrants may be prompted to take jobs (any jobs) below their skills and qualifications, thus suggesting a ‘trade-off’ between unemployment and over-qualification.