Outline evidence of ethnic inequality. (20m)
Ethnic minorities are disadvantaged in terms of wealth. According to the Sunday Time’s rich list of 2009, the top 100 richest people in Britain were disproportionately white; only 5 could be categorised as Asian, 2 as Arab and 0 Blacks. Along with Blacks having the lowest unemployment rate of 12%, British Pakistanis/Bangladeshis have the lowest average hourly wage of £9.98 and are twice likely to have temporal contracted employment than their white counterparts. Modood and Berthoud carried out a workplace survey and found that the extent of poverty was amongst the Bangladeshi and Pakistani population.
Ethnic minorities are disadvantaged in terms of crime. The Institute of Race Relations claimed there were 65 murders with suspected racial motivations between 1991 and 1997. Most notoriously was perhaps the Stephen Lawrence murder in 1993. The subsequent Macpherson inquiry resulted in the Metro Police being branded as “institutionally racist” for its handling of the handling of the murder case. This was because they didn’t properly investigate the murder because they assumes, due to his skin colour, it was gang related. They were numerously given tips about a group of lads whom many believed to be the suspects but repeatedly ignored it despite their history of crime. However their incompetent investigating led to the destruction of evidence by both the investigators themselves and also the suspects. Moreover, police stop and search statistics show that blacks are 8 times more likely to be stopped and searched compared to whites and Asians are 3 times more likely to be stopped than whites. Because blacks are targeted more by police it explains why there is higher percentage of blacks in prison compared to whites.
Ethnic minorities are disadvantaged in terms of housing. Pilkington found that Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are more likely to their low income and high unemployment rates. According to Ginn and Arber, this causes them to rely on welfare state for council houses which are quite often poor in quality. According to the Housing Condition Survey of 2011, 40% ethnic minorities live in poor housing compared to the 32% of whites living in poor housing. Berthoud and Modood gathered data about houses and found that Pakistanis, Bangladeshi and Afro-Caribbean are the most likely to live in non-decent housing. The poor housing affects other factors because poor housing often means dampness, which causes health problems and growth problems, and overcrowding, which can affect school as there is less revision space.
Lastly, ethnic minorities are disadvantaged in relation to health because they are more likely to have poorer health and develop disease. According to the European Human Rights Commission, infant mortality is 100% higher amongst Afro-Caribbean and Pakistanis than whites. Fields found that black men were twice as likely to be sectioned under the mental health act and 7x more likely to develop schizophrenia than white men. Pakistani and Aftro-Caribbean women are more likely to be obese and have higher blood pressure than whites. Fields found Bangladeshis and Pakistanis are 5x more likely to have diabetes and 40% more likely to have coronary heart disease than whites.