Education fails to beat jobs disadvantage for young black men
Hopes that education and better qualifications would hold the key to overcoming job disadvantage among young black men have been disappointed. Although young Indian men’s investment in further and higher education has enabled them to achieve jobs and earnings similar to their white counterparts, the picture is far bleaker for Caribbeans and Africans.
The new study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, by Richard Berthoud of the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), reveals major variations in the employment prospects of young men from different ethnic minorities. Using data from the Government’s Labour Force Survey to create the largest sample of young men of minority ethnic origin ever assembled in Britain, it found that:
- Although Caribbean graduates can be almost as successful in the job market as young whites with degrees, the Caribbean men’s participation in higher education has been falling behind other ethnic groups.
- In contrast, a high and rising proportion of young African men are obtaining good educational qualifications. Yet their unemployment rates are higher than for any other ethnic group. African graduates in their 20s are seven times as likely to be unemployed as their white counterparts.
- Qualification levels among young Indian men are also high and rising. Unlike young African men, their jobs and earnings are very similar to those of whites.
- Although the number of young Bangladeshi and Pakistani men obtaining ‘A’ levels has been rising, they still have above average levels of unemployment and exceptionally low earnings. Overall, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have little more than half the earning power of Indians and whites.
Richard Berthoud said: “Many commentators have put faith in the potential of education to tackle ethnic disadvantage in the jobs market. Although their faith appears justified in the case of young men of Indian origin, the Caribbean and African communities have clearly not benefited in the same way.
“Young men of African origin are especially likely to stay on in education and obtain good qualifications – yet their chances of unemployment are higher than for any other group under study. Among Caribbeans, in contrast, graduates obtain quite a good return for their investment in education, but far too few young men are getting academic qualifications.
“There is no hint from this research that the employment disadvantage among young Caribbean men is a temporary phenomenon. It applies to young people who have been born in Britain, raised and educated here – and unemployed here. It will not go away until something is done about it.”
