Employment and labour markets

 

In addition to the research referred to above on ethnic differences in the labour market, there has been a great deal of work on the SARs relating to the labour market more widely. These include analysis of occupation, and of geographical variations and contextual influences on employment, unemployment and activity.

• The impact of geographical context
  The ability to identify geographical areas at a relatively detailed level allows 'place' to be included in the analysis by the use of multilevel modelling methods. Using the 2% SAR in combination with data from the Small Area Statistics, Fieldhouse and Gould (1998) shows that the type of local labour market does affect the probability of unemployment over and above the effect of individual characteristics such as age and educational qualifications. They are also able to show the impact of particular characteristics of an area. Black Caribbeans were especially hard hit in areas with high levels of unemployment whereas the Asian groups were much less affected (see also Gould and Fieldhouse, 1997). These analyses can be extended to include the role of neighbourhood context (see methodological developments).
  
  
• The use of SARs linked with the LS for analysis of women's employment patterns
  Holdsworth and Dale (1997) use the 1% SAR and the ONS Longitudinal Study (LS) to explore variations in patterns of employment and occupational attainment among women from different ethnic groups. They show that women from different ethnic groups have different employment patterns. The response to child-bearing is much stronger for white women than for most other groups - except Pakistani and Bangladeshi women. Generally, it is only white women who have high levels of part-time working. Logistic regression analysis shows that whilst women under 35 with no dependent children were unlikely to be economically inactive, the likelihood increases sharply over the other life-stages, especially for white women with unemployed partners or for unpartnered women with dependent children. Among the ethnic minority women, Pakistani-Bangladeshi women were generally found to have the highest odds of economic inactivity across the different life-stages. Educational qualifications also played a significant role. Even with life-stages controlled for, Black-Caribbean & Black Other, and Pakistani & Bangladeshi women were about 13 times more likely to be economically inactive than the reference group (the group least likely to be constrained from employment, namely, those who were under 35, UK-born, unpartnered and had degrees with no dependent children, of whom over 95% were economically active). White women were markedly more likely than the other ethnic groups to work part-time rather than full-time if they had dependent children or if they were over the age of 35 or they were single-mothers. The results also showed that cultural norms were being modified by socio-economic factors. Thus, even though Pakistani-Bangladeshi women were, as a group, the most disadvantaged, 97% of the reference group were economically active. The authors then used the LS data to show that minority ethnic women had higher levels of full-time working over child-bearing, and one may expect that to be advantageous to their career progression. Detailed analysis shows, however, that this was not the case. Even though more women from minority ethnic groups who had children between these dates were working full-time at both time points, they did not benefit from working full-time. Ethnic minority groups were doubly disadvantaged because, as the authors say, 'they are more likely than White women to retain a full-time profile and be in manual jobs' (p. 453).
  
  
• To use the SARs for studying integrated occupations
  Sociological studies have long noticed the existence of occupational segregation, also called 'ghettoisation' occasionally, with men's jobs and women's jobs fairly clearly demarcated. For instance, most of senior managerial positions were occupied by men but most of junior secretarial jobs were done by women. Is there gender inequality within the same occupations where men and women incumbents have similar characteristics with regards to education, marital status, dependent children, or even social class? Survey data usually do not allow detailed analysis for specific occupations because of the sample n problems. To use the SAR can overcome this problem. For example, Hakim (1998, ch.9) used the 1% SAR to study pharmacy, which she termed 'an integrated occupation', namely, one 'with roughly equal numbers of men and women holding a pharmacy qualification and/or working as pharmacists' (p. 221). This was also an occupation 'that has been expanding and has escaped the constraints of recession' (ditto). The results show that male pharmacists were around 8 times as likely to work in small firms as female pharmacists (32% and 4% respectively), and that male pharmacists were twice as likely to be employers/managers as female pharmacists (13% and 6%), but the latter were around 10 times to work part time (30% and 3%). Although the two groups were little different in terms of educational qualifications, social class status, age, marital status, ethnicity, having dependent children, housing tenure, the male pharmacists spent more hours on paid work than the female pharmacists: only 4% of the former but 44% of the latter worked less than 36 hours per week. The patterns shown could thus put the thesis of occupational segregation to a serious test. Hakim says that 'Differences in work orientations lead to faster promotions for men and thus vertical job segregation within the profession, which again remains invisible in most occupational classifications' (p. 233). Hakim concludes that an 'insistence on paid work being fitted around familial responsibilities and a preference for convenience factors over high pay mean that women will generally be concentrated in the lower grades of professional and management occupations, even in the absence of sex discrimination, while men will continue to take the lion's share of higher grade jobs' (p: 234).