Key findings

• • All minority ethnic groups living in England are more likely to live in a deprived neighbourhood than the White British group.

• • More than 30 per cent of Bangladeshi and Pakistani people live in deprived neighbourhoods – three times the England average.

• • The proportion living in deprived neighbourhoods fell for most ethnic groups between 2001 and 2011 as a result of each group growing faster outside deprived neighbourhoods.

• • Minority ethnic groups are most concentrated in neighbourhoods that are deprived because of low income, barriers to housing, crime or poor living environment, and less concentrated in neighbourhoods that are deprived because of low employment, poor health or poor educational results.

• • The inequality between ethnic groups in the proportion living in deprived neighbourhoods is greatest in the northern regions of England.

• • Inequalities between the White British group and minority ethnic groups in unemployment and labour market participation are not greater in deprived neighbourhoods than in other neighbourhoods, suggesting that minority groups are disadvantaged wherever they live.

Introduction

The 2011 Census tells us that unemployment among minority ethnic groups is almost twice that of the White British population in England and Wales (see Chapter Eleven). This disadvantage can only be partially accounted for by the individual characteristics of minority ethnic groups which mean they are more likely to be unemployed, including being younger, having fewer educational qualifications, being born abroad, and not speaking English well (Berthoud, 2000; Carmichael and Woods, 2000). The remainder not accounted for by these characteristics is often regarded as an ‘ethnic penalty’, which refers to unmeasured effects including direct and indirect discrimination by employers (Heath and Cheung, 2006; Simpson et al, 2009). Although discriminatory practices are difficult to measure, there is evidence to suggest that discrimination continues to impede the progress of certain minority ethnic groups in housing markets in 21st-century Britain (Lynn and Davey, 2013).

An additional explanation for the presence of ethnic penalties is that minorities are unevenly distributed in poor parts of urban areas in Britain where unemployment and competition for jobs are high (Fieldhouse, 1999; Clark and Drinkwater, 2009). Their concentration in these neighbourhoods is a legacy of the availability of employment and housing opportunities when most immigrant groups settled in the country. The speed at which minority ethnic groups have dispersed to surrounding areas varies and is often tied to socioeconomic differences (Catney and Simpson, 2010).