Abstract
The literature on British Muslim women’s labour market experience suffers from four lacunae: the inadequate analysis of the multi-layered facets of their identities and the disadvantages they face; the narrow range of labour market outcomes studied (primarily labour market participation and unemployment); a lack of recent studies on the integration of Muslim women, educated in the UK and with English as their first language, into the labour market; and the absence of material on several sub-groups due to the lack of data, notably Arab, Christian Indian and White-British Muslim women. Using a large sample of data from the 2011 British census, the analyses presented here suggest that most non-White women face significant labour market penalties, with religion having a greater impact on labour market outcomes than race/ethnicity; Muslim women were the most disadvantaged, compared to other religious minorities, more so in relation to unemployment levels, part-time jobs and out of employment history, than in relation to occupational class and over-qualification. The results also suggest that the penalties facing Muslim women shaped by their ethnicity; not all Muslim women were similarly disadvantaged.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 19-47 |
Number of pages | 29 |
Journal | Quality and Quantity |
Volume | 53 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 7 Mar 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 15 Jan 2019 |
Research Groups and Themes
- SPAIS Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship
Keywords
- Employment prospects
- Ethnic penalty
- Muslim women
- Religious penalty
- UK labour market