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Whiteness, Migration and Integration into the British Labour Market

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Abstract

This paper explores the situation of new groups of immigrants by focusing on various categories within the heterogeneous group of individuals which comprise the White population. We combine information on country of origin, ethnicity and religion derived from the UK Labour Force Survey (LFS) to subdivide the White-British, White-Irish and White-Other categories into nine groups, each of which comprises at least 0.1% of the LFS sample. The analyses contrast the recent labour market experiences of eight of these with those of the Christian White-British majority (who form 73.6% of the LFS sample studied). We then investigate labour market outcomes such as over-qualification, unemployment, longer-term unemployment, discouraged worker effects, part-time working and forced part-time work. The participation of the Christian Eastern European group is markedly different to the other categories in terms of likelihood of working part-time either through choice or because they were unable to find full-time work, and they are less likely to become discouraged workers. We suggest that this is because their motivation in migrating to the UK is work related and they are unlikely to remain if the desired employment is unavailable.

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Notes

  1. The LFS sampling strategy includes for each year a subsample of those sampled the previous year: these repeat entries have been excluded from our analyses here. For full details of the LFS see http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/method-quality/specific/labour-market/labour-market-statistics/index.html (accessed 22 February 2019).

  2. There is now no legal retirement age in the UK, but state and many private pensions are paid from the age 65 on (though this is scheduled to change in the near future).

  3. It is, of course, probably the case that younger individuals might become ‘discouraged workers’, but we concentrate here on those in the 55–64 age group who are more likely to have assembled sufficient resources (through pensions or savings, for example) to exit the labour force ‘early’.

  4. The West European group comprise largely of individuals from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Switzerland.

  5. The Eastern European group include Poland, Romania, Russia, Macedonia, Lithuania, Slovak Republic and Ukraine.

  6. A-level examinations are normally taken at age 18 and are often used to determine candidates’ suitability for a university place.

  7. These unemployment rates appear relatively small compared to nationally published figures because in this table we included the economically inactive in calculating unemployment.

  8. Full tables can be obtained from the authors

  9. For the occupational variable, those in work were asked their current occupation, those not in work their most recent.

  10. Note that the Jewish White-British group had to be combined into the Other Religion category to enable the occupational class interactions, although when modelled without the interactions there were no significant differences for this group

  11. Full tables can be obtained from the authors

  12. Note that in calculating the over-qualification scale the two-digit occupational scale was used, and for each occupation we calculated the difference between the mode of education and the actual education held by each respondent. Thus, if for example the modal educational qualification for an occupation falling within the professional category is ‘other higher qualification’ but a respondent has a degree, then that respondent is classified as over-educated. In practice, we acknowledge that this is likely to be a small group.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    David Manley, Nabil Khattab & Ron Johnston

  2. Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Al Tarfa Street, Al Daayen, Zone 70, Doha, Qatar

    Nabil Khattab

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  1. David Manley
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  2. Nabil Khattab
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  3. Ron Johnston
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Correspondence to Nabil Khattab.

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Manley, D., Khattab, N. & Johnston, R. Whiteness, Migration and Integration into the British Labour Market. Int. Migration & Integration 21, 925–947 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-019-00681-0

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