Abstract
AbstractEthnic and religious differentials in labour market outcomes within many countries have been remarkably persistent. Yet one very well‐known differential—the Catholic/Protestant unemployment differential in Northern Ireland—has largely (although not completely) disappeared. This paper charts its decline since the early 1980s and examines potential explanations using Census data from 1991, 2001 and 2011 together with annual survey data. These data span the ending of The Troubles, the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the introduction of fair employment legislation, growth in hidden unemployment and major structural changes in Northern Ireland. We assess the potential impact of these changes.
Highlights
Ethnic and religious differentials in labour market outcomes within many countries have proven to be remarkably persistent, even in the face of sustained programmes of affirmative action (Darity & Nembhard, 2000)
Did Catholics have a higher unemployment rate because they tended to live in areas with fewer job opportunities? Or were they disadvantaged in hiring because they possessed less education? Alternatively, did Catholics face discrimination—that is, did they receive lower labour market returns to these and other characteristics? Econometric evidence showing that much of the unemployment gap could not be explained by observable characteristics (Borooah, 1999; Murphy & Armstrong, 1994; Smith & Chambers, 1991) failed to resolve the debate
Returning to the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS) data, the third part compares the observable characteristics of each religious group in 1991 and 2011 and performs the decomposition to quantify the contribution of each characteristic to the unemployment differential
Summary
Ethnic and religious differentials in labour market outcomes within many countries have proven to be remarkably persistent, even in the face of sustained programmes of affirmative action (Darity & Nembhard, 2000). This paper studies just such a case: the Catholic/Protestant unemployment differential in Northern Ireland, which had seemed permanently entrenched, but which has largely (if not quite completely) disappeared over the last 30 years. Among other things, this period saw the ending of the Troubles and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, far-reaching equality legislation, the establishment of devolution and major structural change in the Northern Ireland economy. The resulting ‘fair employment’ debate centred on whether this disparity could be better explained by employment-relevant differences in the structure of each population or by labour market discrimination against Catholics. Did Catholics have a higher unemployment rate because they tended to live in areas with fewer job opportunities? Or were they disadvantaged in hiring because they possessed less education? Alternatively, did Catholics face discrimination—that is, did they receive lower labour market returns to these and other characteristics? Econometric evidence showing that much of the unemployment gap could not be explained by observable characteristics (Borooah, 1999; Murphy & Armstrong, 1994; Smith & Chambers, 1991) failed to resolve the debate
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