Have British Jews fully assimilated in the UK Labour Market?

Nabil Khattab

doi:10.17583/rimcis.2015.1490

Abstract

<p class="pagecontents"><span lang="EN-GB">This paper analyses the patterns of occupational attainment and earnings among the Jewish community in Britain using UK Labour Force Survey data (2002-2010). The findings suggest that although British-Jews cannot be distinguished from the majority main stream population of British-White in terms of their overall occupational attainment and earnings, it seems that they have managed to integrate through patterns of self-employment and concentration in the service sector economy, particularly in banking and financial services. It is argued that this self-employment profile is a Jewish strategy used to minimise dependency on majority group employers and by doing so to helping to escape any religious penalties.</span></p>

Highlights

The findings suggest that British-Jews cannot be distinguished from the majority main stream population of British-White in terms of their overall occupational attainment and earnings, it seems that they have managed to integrate through patterns of self-employment and concentration in the service sector economy, in banking and financial services
The 2011 Census reported 260,000 Jews in the UK (ONS, 2012), where the overwhelming majority of British Jewish groups lived in England (96.7%), 2.5% lived in Scotland and only 0.8% lived in Wales
The observations made in this paper are in line with the general view that Jewish groups perform well in education and in the labour market

Summary

Introduction

The 2011 Census reported 260,000 Jews in the UK (ONS, 2012), where the overwhelming majority of British Jewish groups lived in England (96.7%), 2.5% lived in Scotland and only 0.8% lived in Wales. About 60% of Jewish people live in Greater London. The other 40% are dispersed in other urban areas in the UK such as Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Brighton and Bournemouth (Graham et al, 2007). The median age was 44.3 years compared to 38.1 years for British groups as a whole. The size of the Jewish population in Britain as a whole has increased, some studies have pointed out that in terms of faith and belonging to the Jewish religion, there is a tendency for some people to convert and move out of the faith, especially in Scotland (Voas, 2006)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion