Economic Activity among UK Bangladeshi and Pakistani Women in the 1990s

Evidence for Continuity or Change in the Family Resources Survey

Bibliographic Data

ID3666402
AuthorsSarah Salway (0000-0002-7688-5496, University of Salford, corresponding author), Sarah M Salway
Year2007
Volume33
Issue5
Pages825-847
Publication date2007-07-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Community (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13691830701359256
OpenAlexW1992656243
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited17

Recent research has suggested that patterns of economic activity among UK Pakistani and Bangladeshi women may be changing. It is argued that a younger, UK-educated generation of women is both better equipped to compete in the labour market than older migrants and more likely to subscribe to gender roles that view employment outside the home as a legitimate option. Thus far, small sample sizes have restricted investigation into the relationships between life-stage variables and economic activity among qualified Bangladeshi and Pakistani women. Furthermore, these two groups have often been combined in quantitative analyses, thereby precluding any examination of differences. Analyses of data from the UK Family Resources Survey reveal that economic activity was persistently low between 1996/7 and 2001/2 for both Pakistani and Bangladeshi women as a whole, and particularly low among Bangladeshis. Though economic activity was far more common among well-qualified Bangladeshi and Pakistani women than among those without qualifications, marriage and presence of young children continue to be important predictors of economic inactivity. There is evidence that the ‘domestic role’ may be a preferred option for many of these women. Nevertheless, it should be recognised that such ‘preferences’ are constructed within particular socio-economic contexts. I suggest that, although gender roles are fluid and negotiable, they are unlikely to be challenged unless female labour force participation presents good prospects in terms of economic returns and social status. The analyses for this paper were completed as part of a Nuffield Foundation Social Science New Career Development Fellowship while the author was a Lecturer at the Centre for Population Studies, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Notes 1. It is also noted that data relating to Pakistani women are sometimes presented as representing ‘British Muslim’ or ‘British South Asian Muslim’ women with the consequent overlooking of Bangladeshi women's different circumstances. 2. If a respondent does not speak English sufficiently well to be interviewed a close relative would usually act as interpreter. If such a relative is not available and an interviewer with the relevant language and experience is available, then they would conduct the interview. If neither of these options is available, the interview would not be conducted and would be coded as a non-response due to language difficulties. The FRS does not record the number of interviews conducted through an interpreter (Personal communication FRS team, DWP, 26 June 2006). In 2000–1, 12 per cent of ‘Asian’ (Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani combined—the FRS category) non-responding households were coded as ‘language difficulties’ (around 25 cases) (Thornby and Blake Citation2002). 3. From 1996–7 to 2000–1, the ‘ethnic group’ categories included ‘White’, ‘Indian’, ‘Pakistani’ and ‘Bangladeshi’. In 2001–2, the FRS adopted the 2001 census schema, including two white categories: ‘White–British’ and ‘Any other white background’. For the present analysis these two groups were combined and labelled ‘White’ as in the earlier surveys. Also in 2001–2, the three South Asian categories appeared as ‘Asian or Asian British–Indian, ‘Asian or Asian British–Pakistani’, and ‘Asian or Asian British–Bangladeshi’, though this change is not expected to cause great inconsistency between the surveys and the two sets of categories were treated as equivalent. 4. This includes anyone reporting as working full-time or part-time, either employed or self-employed in the seven days prior to interview, and all those reporting actively looking for work or waiting to take up employment already offered, plus the small number on government training schemes or in unpaid work. 5. The FRS questionnaire instructs interviewers to probe for any kind of paid work including that which is casual or only taking up a small amount of time. However, it is likely that some homeworkers may be overlooked. Since South Asian women are disproportionately represented among homeworkers (Felstead and Jewson Citation2000), their estimated economic activity rates may be biased slightly downwards. 6. These figures have been calculated from the table presented by Lindley et al. (2004), excluding full-time students. 7. Sample sizes for this stage were: Whites 88,603, Indian 1,623, Pakistani 990 and Bangladeshi 401. 8. Our data indicated that among 25–29-year-olds just 12 per cent of Pakistanis and 6 per cent of Bangladeshis were never married. No Bangladeshi women remained never married over age 35, and for Pakistanis virtually none were never married over age 40. Among Indians, 24 per cent were never married in the 25–29-year age-group, 6 per cent in the 40–44-year age-group, and a small percentage in the higher age-groups. Regarding dependent children, 37 per cent of Pakistani and 64 per cent of Bangladeshi women in the 20–24-year age-group had at least one child, and for the 25–29-year age-group the figure was 81 per cent for both groups. Less than 50 per cent of 25–29-year-old Indians and Whites reported a dependent child. 9. As with the preceding analyses of economic activity, students have been excluded here. 10. In the FRS, if either of the parents/carers responsible for a child is working, respondents are asked whether anyone else normally looks after the child. Information on individual children was aggregated to create variables indicating any use of childcare, and type of childcare used, by each ‘benefit unit’. A benefit unit is the group of individuals who are considered to be a unit for the purposes of determining entitlement to state welfare benefits. A household can include one or more benefit units depending on the composition and relationships between household members. 11. It is perhaps surprising that more childcare use is not reported. Even in cases where both spouses work full-time and the youngest child is under 11, over 30 per cent of benefit units reported no use of childcare. However, the figures for Whites are comparable to other recent findings where reasons for low use included: children being considered old enough to look after themselves, parents working only during school hours, and care being provided by older siblings (McKay Citation2002). 12. Sample sizes for this stage of the analysis were: Bangladeshis 281, Pakistanis 658, Indians 1,043 and Whites 58,586. 13. A more lenient definition of unemployment that did not require the individual to have been actively searching for work in the past two weeks produced slightly higher estimates of unemployment but did not alter the differentials between the ethnic groups. 14. Information on educational qualification was available from 1998/9 onwards only, which accounts for the slight discrepancies evident between the overall level of unemployment and the levels by educational qualification reported here for Indians. In the FRS, respondents are asked to report all professional, vocational and work-related qualifications with no distinction being made between UK and overseas qualifications. 15. It is also important to recognise that local labour market area and area of residence are not necessarily one and the same. 16. It has been suggested that up to 70 per cent of all marriages to UK Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are to partners resident in Pakistan or Bangladesh (Skalbergs and Gulicova-Grethe 2004). Home Office statistics indicate that 7,000–8,000 applications were approved each year between 2002 and 2004 for women from the Indian sub-continent (the category used by the Home Office) to join their husbands in the UK (Dudley Citation2004; Dudley et al. Citation2002; Home Office Citation2005). 17. The lack of any association between educational qualifications and unemployment among Indian women deserves exploration but is beyond the scope of the present paper. Additional informationNotes on contributorsSarah M. Salway Sarah Salway is Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Health and Social Care Research at Sheffield Hallam University

Demographic economics · Economics · Political science · Population · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Demography · Employment and Welfare Studies · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Migration and Labor Dynamics

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