Race or religion? The impact of religion on the employment and earnings of Britain's ethnic communities

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  • JLJoanne Lindley
    Joanne Lindley
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Abstract
Religious affiliation is hypothesised to be an important determinant of earnings and employment. The aim of this paper is to establish whether religious divisions have a greater impact on employment and earnings than being a member of a particular ethnic group. Using conventional ethnic group classifications fails to identify differences within nationalities. Notable differences exist between Indian Sikhs and Hindus, as well as between Muslims and the other religious groups. However, after controlling for religion, substantial ethnic labour market disadvantage is still apparent. Over and above religious differences, there is a significant employment penalty to British- and foreign-born, non-white males and an earnings penalty to foreign-born non-white males. This provides some evidence for the assimilation of non-white male earnings towards those for whites, but indicates no such assimilation in ethnic unemployment rates. For females, there is no employment penalty to non-whites, but a significant earnings penalty to those not fluent in English, once religious affiliation has been accounted for. Finally, this study finds evidence of a substantial disadvantage to Muslims, relative to all other non-whites. Approximately half of this can be explained by poorer characteristics; the residual is a pure Islamic penalty.