How can we explain the high Muslim levels of poverty? - PowerPoint Presentation

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How can we explain the high Muslim levels of poverty?

Anthony Heath

Centre for Social Investigation

Nuffield College, OxfordSlide2

Poverty rates among different religious groupsSlide3

Documenting the problem

Our evidence from the UKLHS is unequivocal: poverty is a much more common experience among Muslims than among other religious groups

Long known that ethnic groups with Pakistani or Bangladeshi origins have high rates of poverty, so is this an ethnic rather than a religious phenomenon?Slide4

Poverty by ethnicity and religious affiliationSlide5

Possible explanations

Transitory coincidental factors reflecting migration history and recent arrival in Britain. Might be expected to disappear in time

Factors which might be intrinsic to particular religious traditions and might persist over time

Factors which reflect prejudice towards Muslims on the part of British employers and co-workersSlide6

Transitory factors

Recent arrival – lack of fluency in English a major barrier to employment

LDC origins – lower levels of educational attainment restrict people to disadvantaged jobs

Foreign qualifications mean lower returns to educationLack of knowledge about the UK labour marketHistory of migration to declining Northern industrial areasSlide7

Possible intrinsic factors

Family values – caring responsibilities might lead to lower female rates of economic activity, higher family size

Religious involvement might lead to bonding rather than bridging social capital

Mismatch between available work arrangements and religious preferencesMismatch between available childcare arrangements and religious preferencesSlide8

Prejudice, discrimination and other barriers

Discrimination by employers both in taking on Muslim workers and promoting them

Cold reception from non-Muslim co-workers – the chill factor

Pre-labour market discrimination, eg in elite higher education institutions Slide9

Practical difficulties in researching these potential explanations

Ideally one would use a range of research methods,

eg

field experiments to detect discrimination, in-depth interviews to explore the chill factor,social network analysis on bridging and bonding social capital, Attitude or ethnographic research to explore family valuesSlide10

A first approximation using statistical analysis of the UKLHS

Restricted to available measures in the UKLHS, which are largely proxies rather than direct measures of the explanatory concepts. We distinguish

Confounding factors such as age

Transitory factors such as generational status, fluency in English, educational qualificationsPossible intrinsic/religion-related factors such as religiosity, attendance at place of worship, number of children

Possible indicators of labour market barriers

Measures are undoubtedly sub-optimalSlide11

Transitory factorsSlide12

Religion-related factorsSlide13

Labour market factorsSlide14

In summary

Muslims share many of the transitory disadvantages with Hindus and Sikhs, so these factors unlikely to explain their higher poverty rates

Muslims do stand out with respect to religiosity, number of children and women’s economic activity – NB religiosity seems to persist across generations, the other variables less so

Muslims do stand out with respect to unemployment rate and earnings, though surprisingly not with self-reported discrimination or occupational levelSlide15

Statistical analysis of the risks of poverty

We use standard statistical techniques to attempt to see how far these sorts of factor account for excess Muslim rates of poverty

We first take account of confounding factors and ethnicity

Then the transitional factors – generation, education and language difficulties

Next number of children, household size and economic activity

Separate model for attendance, religiosity (NS) and civic engagement

Final model adds social class, earnings, discrimination (NS) and unemploymentSlide16

Results of the regression analysis: average marginal effectsSlide17

The key findings

After taking account of confounding factors, the Muslim poverty rate is 20 percentage points higher than that of Anglicans

Each block of factors (especially the second) explains part of this excess poverty rate

In the case of the other religions, the predictors successfully explain their initial excess poverty rates, but for Muslims a 7 point gap remainsSlide18

Do the mechanisms work differently for Muslims?

In general processes operate similarly for all the religious groups

Muslims are distinctive in the size of the effects of generational status

But this largely re-states the problemSlide19

So how might we explain Muslim

exceptionalism

?

Geographical segregation and concentration? But also applies to Sikhs so cannot explain the differenceReplenishment of Muslim communities? Largely specific to replenishment from Pakistan, which the measure of ethnic origins will have taken into accountIslamophobia and the ‘chill factor’? The most plausible speculation – supported by our current research on attitudes to Muslim migrantsSlide20

Some grounds for optimism

Transitional factors mean that we expect some convergence over time and generations in poverty rates

Also generational change in family size and women’s economic activity – not actually all that intrinsic to Islam

Considerable educational progress, with Muslim women in particular catching up rapidlyReligiosity itself not a cause of poverty (either generally or among Muslims)Slide21

But important unanswered questions

Not clear why Muslims have such low levels of civic engagement (also shown in other data sources)

Not clear why Muslim earnings are so low (again shown in other data sources)

Not clear how to test whether the chill factor really is a major part of the explanationSlide22

Policy responses?

Tackling discrimination in universities and employment

Tackling poor economic environment, especially in Northern England

Tackling barriers to women’s employment (eg mismatch with respect to childcare or employment conditions)Countering Islamophobia in the media