British Muslim women and workplace discrimination

The Independent today features further research by Dr Nabil Khattab of Bristol University on the high incidence of Muslim unemployment in the UK and the possible causes.

Dr Khattab’s latest research, presented at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference in Glasgow, investigates the high rate of unemployment among British Muslim women compared to other religious groups.

According to Khattab’s analysis of the Labour Force Survey, drawing on a sample size of 2,643, British Muslim women are 71% more likely to be unemployed compared to British Hindu and British Christian women.

Khattab analysed the data while controlling for education and qualifications and found that Muslim women face significant discrimination in the workplace which leaves them suffering from an 18 per cent unemployment rate compared with 9 per cent for Hindu women and 4 per cent for white Christian women.

Muslim women were 71 per cent more likely to be unemployed than white Christian women even when they had the same educational level and language proficiency. British Hindu women were 57 per cent more likely to be unemployed than white Christian women.

“Economic activity among Muslim women in the UK remains considerably lower and their unemployment rate remains significantly higher than the majority group even after controlling for qualifications and other individual characteristics,” Dr Khattab said.

His previous research found that British Muslims face the worst level of job discrimination of all groups in society.

Again, using data from the Labour Force survey, Khattab found that “Muslims are “76 per cent less likely to have a job of any kind compared to white, male British Christians of the same age and with the same qualifications. And Muslim women were up to 65 per cent less likely to be employed than white Christian counterparts.”

“For women, Muslim Pakistanis and a “Muslim other” group were 65 per cent less likely to have a job, with Muslim Indians 55 per cent, Muslim Bangladeshis 51 per cent and white Muslims 43 per cent less likely.”

The high rate of Muslim unemployment has been documented in several reports published since the 2001 census which, with the inclusion of a voluntary question on religious affiliation, has made it possible to analyse faith group demographics.

In a study published by the Cabinet Office in 2001, the term “ethnic penalty” was introduced to signify discrimination faced by minorities in the labour market when controlling for factors such as qualifications. The report found that Muslims suffered a greater “ethnic penalty” than other minority groups.

The National Equality Panel report in 2010 found that things had not progressed much with the report stating “Muslims are paid 13-21% less than their White Christian counterparts of equal qualification”.

The report also found “The white population gets the best returns in terms of wages for a given level of qualifications – all minority groups suffer some form of ‘penalty’…Muslim ethnic groups suffer the largest ‘ethnic penalty’.”

In a report published more recently by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Equality on Ethnic Minority Female Unemployment: Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Heritage Women, the continuing impact of poor labour market participation rates among Muslim women was noted with the report stating “Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are particularly affected, with 20.5% being unemployed compared to 6.8% of white women, with 17.7% of Black women also being unemployed.”

British Muslim women make up 48% of the British Muslim population and while Government policies focusing on the role of Muslim women in the context of counter-terrorism has been prolific far less has been done to focus on two major obstacles affecting their security and well-being: Islamophobia and discrimination in the workplace.

Research shows that Muslim women are more likely to be victims of anti-Muslim hate crime often because of the visibility of religious garb, such as headscarves of niqab. Dr Khattab has argued that anti-Muslim prejudice in society at large is one of the reasons for discrimination faced by Muslims in employment.

The political party manifestos for the 2015 General Election commit to a number of policies to promote gender equality but only the Labour party’s manifesto makes an explicit commitment to a cross-government race equality strategy. Given the discrimination British Muslim women face on grounds of gender and religion, it is our hope that this more comprehensive approach will go further to tackle the problem.