Economic activity in the South Asian Population in Britain: the impact of ethnicity, religion and class

Nabil Khattab (1) , Ron Johnston (2) , Tariq Modood (3) , Ibrahim Sirkeci (4)

1 Bristol Institute For Public Affairs
2 University of Bristol [Bristol]
3 Department of SociologyUniversity of Bristol
4 Marketing, Strategy and Law

This paper expands the existing literature on ethnicity and economic activity in Britain by studying the impact of religion and class. It argues that while the class location of the different South Asian groups is important in determining their labour market outcomes, it does not operate independently from ethnicity; rather it is highly influenced by ethnicity in the process of determining the labour market participation of these groups. We use data obtained from the 2001 UK Census on Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi men and women aged 20-29. Our findings confirm that class structure of the South-Asian groups is highly ethnicised, in that the ethno-religious background and class are interwoven to the extent that the separation between them is not easy, if not impossible.

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie

Nabil Khattab, Ron Johnston, Tariq Modood, Ibrahim Sirkeci. Economic activity in the South Asian Population in Britain: the impact of ethnicity, religion and class. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2011, PP (PP), pp.1. ⟨10.1080/01419870.2010.541473⟩. ⟨hal-00670241⟩