From School to the Labour Market in Britain: the Qualitative Exposure of Structures of Exclusion

Abstract

The number of 16–24 year olds in the UK labour force has been falling, and within this falling number an increasingly large proportion of new labour market entrants will come from ethnic minorities, young people who will have received all or most of their education in Britain. Research has shown that the descendants of Britain’s postwar migrants — those who came from ex-colonies, primarily the Caribbean, India and Pakistan — are more likely than their equivalent white peers to be unemployed, or employed beneath their qualification level, even though they were born and educated in the UK (Drew et al. 1992).