Use of the SARs in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

 

Although many data sets are available with 'boosted' sample sizes for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, detailed analysis is often not possible using such data. The SARs overcome these problems due to their large sizes and rich details in various aspects. Research has been conducted on the relative labour market disadvantage amongst Catholics in Northern Ireland, advantages for Welsh speakers in Wales, and the relationship between migration and class position, and class and health in Scotland.

• Northern Ireland
  'Is there a penalty to being a Catholic in Northern Ireland?' was a research question that Borooah (1999) addresses. Using the SAR for Northern Ireland and multinomial logistic regression, the author investigates the possibility of religious discrimination in occupational attainment and finds a religious penalty for both male and female Catholics as compared with Protestants, although Catholic men faced much greater penalty than Catholic women. Both Catholic men and women were over-represented in the jobless and under-represented in professional and managerial positions, controlling for other personal characteristics. In other words, the Catholics were penalised for who they were, whilst controlling for what they were. Occupational attainment pertains to two aspects: different treatment of persons employed in the same occupation and different chances of access to an occupational status. Previous studies have shown that Catholics were about 20% worse off than average in structural disadvantages. How much penalty did they suffer in terms of identity disadvantage? Controlling for age, educational qualifications and area, 17% of Catholic men were jobless as opposed to only 9.2% of Protestants; for women, 10.2% of Catholics and 5.7% of Protestants were unemployed (Tables 8 and 9). For men with low qualifications, 18.9% of Catholics but only 10.4% of Protestants were jobless (10.6% and 5.9% for women: Tables 11 and 12). And having the various characteristics adjusted for, Catholic men were underrepresented in professional and managerial positions by 4 percentage points (32.4% for Protestants and 28.4% for Catholics). There was thus clear evidence against Catholics in Northern Ireland.
  
  'Why are Deprivation Levels in Northern Ireland Higher for Catholics than for Protestants?' is a question that Borooah (2000) asks and endeavours to answer based on the Northern Ireland SAR. This question has two aspects: the deprivation level between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland; and two, the penalty dealt to Catholics given their personal characteristics and circumstances. The basis upon which the deprivation index is created is: having no car, no central heating, no WC, no running water, no connection to public sewage, non-permanent accommodation, more than one person per room, limiting long-term illness and no earner in household. [Note that this index is different from that by Dale et al, 2000: 215]. The incidence, for every DIC (deprivation-inducing condition, namely the variables named above), was greater for Catholics than it was for Protestants and this was true for both retired and non-retired parts of the sample (Table 1). The author then trichotomised the index: non-deprived (index = 0), mildly-deprived (> 0 but <= mean) and strongly-deprived (> mean), and used an ordered logit model to compare Catholics and Protestants while controlling for age, educational qualifications, gender, retiral status, employment status, number of people in household, single parenthood and residential area. The results show that Catholics pay a higher price of deprivation than Protestants even with the same set of personal attributes/circumstances.
  
  
• Scotland
  While Scottish Highlands and Islands experienced a century (mid-19th to mid-20th century) of depopulation, a re-population was witnessed in recent decades. What are the main social-economic characteristics of the immigrants? Boyle (1995b) studies the flows of migrants into the Scottish Highlands and Islands from the remainder of Britain using the SAR. The findings suggest that immigration from middle-class districts of southern England was a notable element of the population change in this remote rural destination. Boyle (1997), again using the SAR, tries to identify and contrast the characteristics of the English and Scottish residents in this destination area; he then compares the characteristics of the English immigrants in this area with those in other areas of Scotland. The results show that the socio-economic characteristics of the English and Scottish residents in the Scottish Highlands and Islands differ considerably. The family circumstances of English and Scottish residents were distinct with English being more likely to be in 'non-traditional' households. English-born residents in the Highlands and Islands are also significantly different to the English living elsewhere in Scotland. The English in Scottish Highlands and Islands were more likely to be in service class or petty bourgeois occupations, to own their own homes, to be remarried or part of a family with cohabiting parents, in a word, to be 'urban refugees'. They were also more likely to be in service-class jobs in other parts of Scotland than the Scottish.
  
  'Does migration exaggerate the relationship between deprivation and limiting long-term illness?' Boyle and co-authors (2001) ask in a recently published paper using the sub-sample of the SAR for Scotland. They investigate whether the migration patterns of ill individuals influences the relationship between limiting long-term illness and material deprivation. More specifically, they seek to determine whether individuals who are well are more likely to migrate away from deprived areas and whether ill individuals are more likely to migrate towards deprived areas. If true, this would suggest that the apparent relationship between deprivation and limiting long-term illness is exaggerated by the effects of migration. They then examine the issue controlling for individual-level characteristics expected to influence limiting long-term illness and pay special attention to the role of public housing in these relationships. From the 1991 Census Small Area Statistics, they calculated the mean deprivation scores for each of the 13 groups. They then modelled the probability of limiting long term illness (LLTI) on a variety of variables expected to affect it. They find that migrants tend to be healthier than non-migrants; that once age is controlled for, short-distance migrants are more likely to report LLTI than long-distance and non-migrants; that controlling for other variables, both short- and long- distance migrants are less likely to suffer LLTI in all areas, except 'rural areas'; that controlling for individual characteristics did not alter the conclusion that migration does not appear to influence the relationship between health and deprivation in a consistent way; and finally, migrants in public housing are more likely to be ill than non-migrants.
  
  
• Wales
  The use of SARs permits fine-tuned analysis of issues of interest at regional or 'country' level. Some 'surprising' results may turn up. For instance, there was a rather high rate of unemployment at the time of the 1991 census and marginal groups suffered more disadvantages. Minority groups were generally more likely to be unemployed than the majority groups and this was not merely a matter of skin colour (Irish immigrants were as vulnerable to unemployment as other minority ethnic groups). But Welsh speakers (less than 20% of people in Wales speak Welsh) were found to be less likely than non-Welsh speakers to be unemployed in the Welsh labour market (Drinkwater and O'Leary, 1997). For those proficient in speaking, reading and writing Welsh, unemployment rates were 4.5 percentage points lower for males and 2.2 points lower for females than non-Welsh speakers. Why did the Welsh speakers enjoy the economic advantage? One reason may be that they enjoyed verbal and non-verbal, cultural advantages (social capital) as compared with the non-Welsh speakers in the job-seeking process; another reason might be the positive discrimination policy, especially for certain types of jobs in the public sector. These possibilities can, however, not be explored using the census data. But it is possible to compare Welsh and non-Welsh speakers in a number of aspects. The authors show that the two groups were similar in a range of profiles such as age structure, marital status, but Welsh speakers were on the whole better qualified. But even with these characteristics held constant, the ability to read, write and speak Welsh was found to have a significant effect on unemployment (Table 5). (See also Blackaby and Drinkwater, 1997.)