Strategy Survival Guide

Analysing data - Modelling
In Practice: SU Ethnic Minorities and the Labour Market Project
Understanding the drivers of performance and progression in the workplace was crucial to the SU’s
'Ethnic Minorities and the Labour Market’ project. Equally important, however, was gaining an
understanding of the various factors impeding success in the workplace, from educational underattainment
and socio-economic disadvantage to residence in inner urban areas and limited experience in
the labour market.
The team used regression analysis to compare the relative strength of each of these, and other, factors in
accounting for the disadvantage experienced by Britain’s ethnic minority groups. A number of regression
models were used, each of which took account of a different combination of these conditioning factors.
An examination of several of the models led the team to conclude that:
• ethnic minorities remain disadvantaged in terms of employment and occupational attainment
even after key variables are taken into account. Some groups are clearly even more
disadvantaged than gross differences suggest, given their educational qualifications or other
characteristics;
• ethnic minority men have been persistently disadvantaged in terms of earnings. British-born
ethnic minority women appear to be no longer disadvantaged in terms of earnings, though their
foreign-born peers continue to be disadvantaged;
• Indian men are consistently the least disadvantaged among ethnic minority groups; and
• Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black men and women are consistently among the most
disadvantaged.
The most important conclusion that emerges from these analyses is that, even after accounting for key
variables, all ethnic minority groups are disadvantaged relative to Whites in comparable circumstances.
The figures below illustrate this fact, showing the earnings and unemployment risk of ethnic minority men
relative to their White peers, before ('Actual’) and after ('Like-for-like’) taking into account factors such as
age, education, recency of migration, economic environment and family structure. Together, these
variables can explain just £10 of the £116 wage gap between Blacks and Whites.
Figure 1: Weekly Male Earnings Relative to White Counterpart
Like-for-like
Actual
-£23
-£5
Indian
-£116
-£107
Black
-£150
-£129
Pakistani / Bangladeshi
-£160 -£140 -£120 -£100 -£80 -£60 -£40 -£20 £0
Source: R. Berthoud 'Ethnic Employment Penalties in Britain’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies,
26:389-416, 2000.
Note: Figure combines the effects of unemployment and of pay
Strategy Survival Guide – Strategy Skills
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