Structural Inequalities Experienced by Black People in Britain

What are some of the challenges faced by young black people trying to climb the socio-economic ladder in the Britain today?

According to research and data, people of African and Caribbean backgrounds have one of the highest unemployment rates and the lowest home ownership rates in Britain. I suspect that structural inequalities in different areas of society such as education and employment hinder their ability to achieve social mobility.

What is social mobility?

“Social mobility” refers to the movement of individuals, families and other social units from a lower socio-economic status or position in society to a higher socio-economic status or position. A simpler way to put it would be when a person from a lower class climbs to a higher class within a society with a class structure i.e., low/working class>> middle/working class>>high/upper class.

There are different ways that social mobility can be measured but in the context of this blog I’m focusing specifically on education level, employment rate and home ownership rate as they pertain to the social mobility of black people in Britain.

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Home Ownership

Data published in 2020 by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government showed the rate of home ownership by ethnicity. The results showed that black households were among the lowest percentages of homeowners. Households in the Black African category being only at 20% rate of home ownership. In comparison, 74% of Indian households, 70% of mixed white/Asian households, 68% of white British households all owned their own homes.  

I believe that structural inequalities in education and employment are some of the key reasons why homeownership rates are as low as they are in the black British communities.

Most homes in Britain are purchased using mortgage loans and a household’s earnings and income are fundamental to securing a loan. Having a professional and managerial job, which are usually well-paying jobs, is normally key to being able to financially qualify for most loans.

People of Afro-Caribbean (usually black) backgrounds often struggle to qualify for loans because the majority are not in professional and managerial jobs and thus often do not have enough earnings and income to qualify for loans. Even when they do have enough earnings and income, its often due to the type of employment they have – non-secure employment i.e., self-employed or zero-hour contract work. Lenders are often reluctant to lend to people with non-secure employment regardless of their earnings or income.

So why is it that people of Afro-Caribbean backgrounds struggle to enter professional and managerial jobs and are more often in non-secure employment? I believe the problem starts in education and the sorts of experiences that people from the black communities often face followed by the challenges faced in procuring employment.

Inequality in Education

Education has a significant impact on employment opportunities. The more education someone receives, as in the more educational qualifications they attain, the more jobs that are available to them.  However, the idea that the more education one receives equates to more job opportunities is not necessarily true for black people in Britain.

Firstly, black people access pre-school at lower rates than other ethnicities which means they therefore start school with a disadvantage. Secondly, several studies have shown that black pupils education attainment is adversely affected by the conscious and unconscious biases of teachers. Their assumptions about the behaviour and work ethic of black pupils and the tendency to underestimate their academic ability often has a real negative impact on them.

I think more training and education on the different challenges certain ethnic groups experience would be beneficial for teachers, particularly those from dissimilar backgrounds. Their negative perceptions and low expectations for black pupils can often leave them demotivated. These expectations sometimes result in black pupils being disproportionately allocated to lower test tiers reflecting their biases and not the pupil’s actual academic potential.

Another probable explanation for the poor performance of black pupils in school is the lack of co-ethnic role models with only a small percentage of trainee teachers being from black backgrounds. Therefore, together with more training, I think hiring more educators from similar backgrounds as the pupils would likely have a positive effect.

Thirdly, black pupils are excluded from schools more often than other ethnic groups which severely hinders their progress in education attainment and their ability to achieve social mobility. If they aren’t excluded and manage to make it to university, they usually experience another disadvantage – the kinds of universities they can get into.

The university that a student graduates from can have a significant impact on their job opportunities and their earnings. Therefore, unequal access to the higher tariff institutions can serve as an additional hinderance to social mobility. Black students are more likely to receive offers from and attend low tariff institutions than the high tariff ones and this remains the case even when accounting for academic performance.

Inequality in Employment Opportunities

Even when black graduates manage to attain similar qualifications demonstrating a comparable educational performance to their high performing ethnic counterparts, studies have shown that black applicants must apply for over 60% more job vacancies in order to receive the same number of offers as whites or Indians or Chinese applicants. Evidence suggests they rely more often on social networks to get jobs, are usually paid less than their peers and/or advance in their careers at lower rates than other ethnic groups.

Thus, it is not just the black students that underperform in education that struggle in the employment market, black people who excel in education also face difficulty in securing professional and managerial jobs after graduating with research indicating that racial discrimination from prospective employers and recruiters plays a major role.

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I think it’s important to acknowledge that there are likely other factors as well not mentioned previously in this blog that contribute to the problem. There is evidence that shows how immigration, and the social class and milieu of immigrant parents also has a direct influence on the expectations and ambitions of their children, especially second-generation immigrant children born or raised in Britain. Nonetheless, the structural inequalities faced by black people from the classrooms to the workplaces seem to contradict the notions of a post-racial modern society; the idea that any instances of racism today are mere remnants of the past and not reflective of any societal or structural issue but just individual predispositions.