Abstract
ABSTRACTEthnic minorities in the U.K. are more likely than the white majority to gain university qualifications, but experience worse labour market outcomes on average. This paper compares employment and earnings of British graduates from ethnic minorities to those of white British graduates to analyse whether ethnic labour market differences exist among the highly qualified, and whether they can be explained by differences in parental background, local area characteristics or differences in university careers. These factors account for a substantial part of persistent ethnic differences in earnings, but explain very little of the differences in employment. Compared to the literature estimating ethnic labour market inequalities on people with any level of qualification, we find smaller ethnic differences in employment and almost no differences in earnings among graduates entering the labour market. The results are robust to various changes in model specification.
Highlights
Ethnic minorities in the U.K. are more likely to have university qualifications than white British, but still face substantial disadvantage in the labour market on average (Algan et al 2010; Modood 2005)
We find some indication that female ethnic minority graduates were less likely to be employed than their white British peers three and a half years after graduation, the difference is only marginally significant (p < .1) and only for Indian and Pakistani/Bangladeshi women, as well as for Black Caribbean women who were initially employed
The small earning inequalities and some of the ethnic advantages we find in Table 2 may be due to selection into paid employment, where ethnic minority graduates that do find a job are more positively selected than white British graduates
Summary
Ethnic minorities in the U.K. are more likely to have university qualifications than white British, but still face substantial disadvantage in the labour market on average (Algan et al 2010; Modood 2005). Most of the previous literature compares people with different levels of education and at different points in their career, conflating various possible explanations for the observed ethnic employment and wage inequalities. By analysing labour market outcomes six months and three and a half years after graduation we can provide evidence on the mechanisms through which ethnic differences arise among graduates, without confounding them by inequalities arising over the life course. “The Educational Attainments of Ethnic Minorities in Britain.”. Migration and Social Mobility: the Life Chances of Britain’s Minority Ethnic
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