Ethnic Poverty in the UK - Essay Example

Ethnicity and Poverty - The Visible Link The minority ethnic population in the UK grew by 53% between 1991 and 2001, from 3 million people to 4.6 million people respectively. Indians were the largest minority group, followed by Pakistanis, people of mixed ethnic backgrounds, black Caribbeans, black Africans and Bangladeshis (Bhugra & Becker 2005: 18). Introduction The United Kingdom can no longer be called as the land of white, British population alone. As such it is essential to ensure that the inequalities in terms education, poverty and health be addressed immediately by the policy makers. According to Darton and Streliz’s (2003) report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, there has been an increase in the Median income in Britain by about fifty per cent, as is seen in the rising expenditure levels on holidaying, purchasing household articles, rising acquisition of homes by the people and so on (p. 7). However, rise in median income levels have not set right inequalities and social inequalities continue to exist in the country. One of the main indicators of their existence is seen in the rising poverty levels of ethnic minorities. This essay shall briefly discuss the relationship between ethnicity and poverty and examine it, explaining some important terms like poverty, measurement of poverty and the like, in the context of ethnicity. It shall conclude that while policy changes can be a guide to the future course of action, real solution to the problem of ethnic poverty lies in the transformation of the society as more inclusive and tolerant one, open and unbiased in terms of race and ethnicity. Definitions and Measurement of Poverty Poverty, in general can be explained as a state of being poor economically; Britain and many other countries have agreed to begin their efforts to wipe out ‘absolute’ and also reduce ‘overall’ poverty, through the implementation of national poverty-alleviation plans (UN, 1995 cited in Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain 2000: 9). Absolute poverty is defined as "a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services." (UN, 1995, p57); on the other hand ‘overall poverty’ is defined as being displayed in different forms as "lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods; hunger and malnutrition; ill health; limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality from illness; homelessness and inadequate housing; unsafe environments and social discrimination and exclusion." (ibid, p.57). While the latter is found in all countries, in specific pockets, or during times of depression and the like, the former is found in underdeveloped nations in large numbers, like for example in Ethiopia. It can be said that in the UK the latter is more prevalent than the former. Naturally one tends to wonder ‘how will one know and identify the difference between the two; and is there any level by which they are calculated?’ This brings forth the question ‘how is poverty measured?’ The simplest way to measure poverty, is the “relative income method” (Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain 2000: 9). This method takes into account both, the money or income in the hands of people and also whether it is enough to sustain a minimum, comfortable life style. Therefore, income is considered and also the “ability of the people to purchase basic items” otherwise known as “budget standards” is also taken into account. Using this, “the consumption expenditure or the deprivation indices” are calculated – in other words, the lack of affordability deprives the ownership of some basic items, and these are then as indices of low standards of living (Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain 2000: 9). Deprivation indices are important in ultimately determining the poverty line, the level below which families or individuals are marked as living in poverty; “The income threshold for different types of household that marks the ‘poverty line’ thus needs to identify income levels, below which there is a statistically enhanced risk of incurring multiple forms of deprivation” (Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain 2000: 9). Different Ethnic Minorities and Poverty Levels Ever since the Second World War ended and most of the colonial territories held by Great Britain gained independence, cross-cultural migration has increased rapidly leading the United Kingdom to be called as one of the most culturally diverse nations. The ethnic groups that live in the United Kingdom can broadly be classified into Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Black Africans, Caribbeans, Indian and Chinese people, apart from British whites and other non-British whites as can be seen from the ethnicity table (Table 1). Another sub-classification may be the women of ethnic minorities afflicted by poverty, and similarly child poverty levels of ethnic minorities. This essay, however, does not include in its discussion the people of mixed descent. Notably in the United Kingdom nearly two by five parts of those belonging to ethnic minorities dwell in low-income households, which is twice the rate of white people who dwell in similar households (Palmer 2009). The similarity between all ethnic minorities is that a sizeable level of their people living below the poverty line. However, the similarity ends there. Lucinda Platt (2007) observes in her report summary that there are sharp differences in poverty rates based on their ethnic group. As compared to people from all ethnic groups, “the risks of poverty are highest for Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Black Africans, but are also above average for Caribbean, Indian and Chinese people” (Platt 2007: 1). Significantly, poverty levels remain constantly low for ethnic minorities in whichever way they are classified. For example, statistics of ethnic minorities with single income families, two income families, no income families, child poverty, joblessness-related poverty, and poverty related to long periods of joblessness due to ill-health, all of them show significant percentages of ethnic minorities. For example, poverty due to low levels of income over continued periods of time are given as: Ethnic people from Bangladesh (65 per cent), Ethnic Pakistanis (55 per cent) and black Africans (45 per cent); black Caribbeans (30 per cent), Indians (25 per cent), white Other (25 per cent) and white British (20 per cent) (Kenway and Palmer 2007:5). Graphs of other classification indicators are given at the end (Appendix 1), all of which indicate the high levels of poverty in ethnic minorities. Poverty, Ethnic Women and Ethnic Children Moosa and Woodroffe in their work entitled Poverty pathways: ethnic minority women’s Livelihoods (2009) observe that about forty percent of women belonging to ethnic minorities in general, live in poverty. Particularly worse are women of African descent and women of Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnicities, since they more than thirty-three percent and sixty-six percent of them are found to be living below the poverty line, respectively. It is important to note that in addition to ethnicity, these women – because of their identities as women, are placed at the lowest levels of income. In short this means, for a given educational levels, experience and age, white British men at the top of the income ladder, followed by white women. Men from ethnic minorities earn much less income than white women and for the same qualifications and experience and age, women of ethnic minorities earn the least incomes. The details provided here offer an insight into the approximate figures for working and non-working women in the context of poverty studies; “Around 30% of non-retired White British women aged 25 and over do not work, with only slightly higher proportions for Black Caribbeans, White other and Indians.  For Black Africans, the proportion rises to almost 50%.  But what really stands out is that the vast majority - 80% - of Bangladeshi and Pakistani women do not work.” (Palmer 2009: key facts) (http://www.poverty.org.uk/47/index.shtml?2) As regards the position of ethnic children, citing the Department for Work and Pensions -Households Below Average Income 2007/2008, Figures are after housing costs Report, (2009) the Barnardos.org website states that, the child poverty rates of “Black or Black British households” is as high as forty-eight per cent. More significantly, the rates of poverty increases to sixty-seven per cent in Pakistani and Bangladeshi households; in comparison the percentage of white children who live in poverty is only twenty-seven. In her full analyses and report of child poverty in the UK entitled, It doesn’t happen here – The reality of child poverty in the UK, Neera Sharma (2007), Sharma delineates the relationship between poverty and children of ethnic origin as “Worklessness is one of the key drivers for the higher poverty rates for some ethnic minority groups – while the UK has an overall employment rate of 75 per cent of all working adults, this falls to only 60 per cent when looking solely at working age individuals from ethnic minority populations” (p. 16). Pertinently, being of Bangladeshi/Pakistani origin or Black/Black British is one of the risk factors for child to fall into poverty (Sharma 2007: p.11). Reasons for Ethnicity Linked Poverty Education: One notable point in reasons for poverty is the lack of education. While this holds good for any ethnicity, it is more so in the case of ethnic minorities as studies reveal that “many young people from some minority groups have lower than average attainment levels” (Darton and Streliz 2003: 64). However, interesting anomalies have been revealed in the studies, like generally, the performance of women is much better for every group considered. But, diversity in between each ethnic group shows up as sharp differences in their attainment levels and varies from sixty-eight per cent of young Chinese people who obtain five GCSEs A–C as compared to the twenty-six per cent of young Black Carribean students (Darton and Streliz 2003: 64-5). It may be appropriate to deduce from the above the reasons for low or high educational attainment levels for each ethnic group may be many, hidden and too complex to simplify. However, low educational levels ensure that the ethnic members remain marginalized in the society since they are denied access to high paying jobs which require high professional qualifications and education. While this is applicable to most of the ethnic minorities, another visible anomaly to this is that despite high academic achievement levels, the Black or African minorities have not been able to reach satisfactory employment levels with some of them being over qualified for the jobs they are in (Platt 2007:3). Discrimination: This brings to the fore the ever-current subject of racial and ethnic discrimination. Though other reasons cannot be denied, there still exists an element of discrimination which Platt (2007) terms as ‘ethnic penalty’ (p. 2) which prevents even educated people from ethnic minority groups to find suitable employment, and equal payment and career prospects in their employment as compared to the dominant white population. Not only Africans, but all other minorities like the Indians and the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, too suffer this penalty in varying degrees; Indians face a penalty in comparison to their employable skills and educational levels, while the latter two suffer considerable levels of discrimination. Just how alive this trait of discrimination is can be understood from the news report in the BBC dated 14.01.2009 “BBC investigation uncovers racial discrimination amongst lettings and employment agencies” in which some recruiting agencies discriminated between whites and ‘others’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/01_january/14/inside_out.shtml). Discrimination is evident from the low wages of fifty percent of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis -less than £7 per hour (Palmer 2007). http://www.poverty.org.uk/summary/key%20facts.shtml Income Needs: As seen earlier, poverty cannot be merely caused by low income levels; if the demands on the income are more on a satisfactory level of income, then the demands on the income lead to poverty. To illustrate this further, in the case of ethnic Bangladeshi and Pakistani families, the average size of the families is large, and therefore the limited income resource is to to be shared by more number of people as compared to the small family size is white families. This leads to more deprivation and therefore poverty levels. In the case of Black Africans and Black Caribbeans single- parent families were more common and therefore suffered the risk of poverty. (Platt 2007:4). Ethnicity and Health Conditions: Indisputable in the discussion of ethnicities and poverty are the factors of genetic and biological traits peculiar to each race and ethnicity. Biologically some ethnic groups are more susceptible to some forms of disease while others are more resistant to them. Additionally cultural and individual behavioural patterns too impact the opportunities for health, fitness and well being in a person. For example some types of colon cancer are more prevalent in African-Americans than people of other race/ethnicities (Cancer.org 2005:3). Similarly, African-Caribbeans’ have higher rates of sickle cell anaemia as compared to the incidence of the disease in white Europeans (National Institutes of Health website), however, they suffer less from haemophilia comparatively (http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/apryce/ethnic.htm). Furthermore, prolonged illnesses effectively drain the limited family resources like income, and prevent the individuals from acquiring education or other skills, and burdening them more with the necessity of meeting the costs of treatment. In women too, health and ethnicity have strong links, since ethnic minorities tend to have larger families, women tend to suffer more from problems either because of large families or facing the pressures of lone parenting. . Conclusion The multicultural society of Britain is presently mosaic of various races and ethnic populations. This has brought about irreversible changes in the live styles of people. However, it has resulted in the marginalization and social exclusion of some people, especially the ethnic minorities of the United Kingdom. Studies related to the various ethnic minorities in Britain, ranging from Black – Africans to Bangladeshis reveal that poverty is widespread amongst them, though they differ in their levels of poverty. This difference necessitates that poverty is given precise definition and that specific methods of measurement of poverty levels be devised, which have been discussed in the essay. The relationship between ethnicity and poverty is undeniable and can be seen from the various figures and statistics. The varied reasons for the strong link between the two have been delineated, and it is evident from the reasons that some of them have ingrained deep into social norms, and thus is visible till date – discrimination is a good example of this. Poverty rates of ethnic women and children are correlated and are worthy of more detailed examination in future. Thus, it can be concluded that it requires more than official and legal policies to eradicate the inequality of poverty in the ethnic minorities living in the UK. A sincere commitment from the people to include the nations’ ethnic minorities starting from the upper most chambers of power can alone set right this social inequality, and break the strong, visible link between ethnicity and poverty. References BBC.CO.UK (2009). “BBC investigation uncovers racial discrimination amongst lettings and employment agencies” Online version retrieved on November 8, 2009. http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/01_january/14/inside_out.shtml Bhugra, Dinesh & Becker, A. Matthew (2005). “Migration, cultural bereavement and cultural identity- Special Article” in Journal of World Psychology 4:1, February 2005. pp.(18-24). Darton, David and Streliz, Jason (2003). Tackling UK poverty and disadvantage in the twenty- first century - An exploration of the issues. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Pp.(7-163). Kenway, Peter and Palmer, Guy (2007). Poverty among ethnic groups - how and why does it differ? New Policy Institute. ISBN: 978 1 85935 579 4. Pp. (1-40). Online version retrieved on November 8, 2009. http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/2042-ethnicity-relative-poverty.pdf Moosa, Zohra and Woodroffe, Jessica (2009). “Executive Summary - Poverty pathways: ethnic minority women’s livelihoods” in www.fawcettsociety.org.uk Online version retrieved on November 8, 2009. http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/documents/Povertypathways.pdf Platt, Lucinda (2007). “Findings- Informing Change” Summary of the Poverty and ethnicity in the UK Report. Online version Ref: 2059 retrieved on November 8, 2009. http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/2059.pdf Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain (2000). Edited by David Gordon. Joseph Rowntree Foundation. ISBN 1 85935 059 3 Pp. (1-101). Online version retrieved on November 8, 2009. http://www.bris.ac.uk/poverty/pse/Poverty%20and%20Social%20Exclusion%20in%20Britain%20JRF%20Report.pdf Palmer, Guy (2009). “Key Facts” in http://www.poverty.org.uk/ webpage retrieved on November 8, 2009. http://www.poverty.org.uk/summary/key%20facts.shtml Sharma, Neera (2007). It doesn’t happen here – The reality of child poverty in the UK, with a commentary by Donald Hirsch. Pp. (4-64). Online version retrieved on November 8, 2009. http://www.barnardos.org.uk/poverty_full_report_07.pdf “The Reality of Child Poverty in the UK” in http://www.barnardos.org.uk/ Online version retrieved on November 8, 2009. http://www.barnardos.org.uk/childpoverty/child_poverty_published_reports/pov-itdoesnthappenhere Table 1: Ethnicities in the United Kingdom Major group Sub-group Proportion of the Great Britain population White White British 88% White Irish (sometimes) 1% White Other 2½% Asian or Asian British Indian 2% Pakistani 1½% Bangladeshi ½% Other Asian ½% Black or Black British Black Caribbean 1% Black African 1% Black Other 0% Chinese and Other Chinese ½% Other 1% Mixed White and black Caribbean 1% White and black African White and Asian Another mixed background Source: Poverty among ethnic groups how and why does it differ? Peter Kenway and Guy Palmer, New Policy Institute (2007). Joseph Rowntree Foundation (p.4). Table 2 Educational Performance by Ethnicity and Gender Per cent gaining five GCSEs A*–C by ethnicity & Gender Overall (%) Men (%) Women (%) White 47 43 52 Caribbean 26 22 30 African 32 22 41 Other black 33 * 34 Indian 54 50 58 Pakistani 27 24 30 Bangladeshi 29 22 37 Chinese 68 68 69 Other Asian 61 53 72 All others 36 31 42 Source: Department for Education and Skills (2001) Youth Cohort Study: The activities and experience of 16-year-olds: England and Wales, . Accessed 27 January 2003 * Number with held due to sample size Appendix 1 (Source http://www.poverty.org.uk/06/index.shtml?2) Graph A: By ethnic group http://www.poverty.org.uk/06/bh.png Graph B: By age http://www.poverty.org.uk/06/ch.png Graph C: By family work status http://www.poverty.org.uk/06/dh.png Graph D: Working families http://www.poverty.org.uk/06/eh.png Read More