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Your report on the recent findings from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (Human rights watchdog calls for urgent action on Britain’s “deep-rooted” inequality, 18 August) raises concerns about inequalities across a range of areas including education, jobs, pay and health. While the research in the EHRC report certainly requires detailed examination, it is important to note that, alongside areas of concern, there are also figures indicating significant progress.
Black and minority ethnic people are, according to the Law Society and the General Medical Council, more likely to have jobs in prestigious professions such as law and medicine as a proportion of the UK population, although there are concerns about reaching the highest levels in these professions. Children of families of Indian and Chinese origin are the highest school achievers. Children from black and minority ethnic groups are more likely to go to independent schools and, according to recent figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, are also more likely to go to university.
Moreover, there is a need to move beyond the categories used in research in this area, which can serve more to obscure than to illuminate. As research from the Institute for Public Policy Research, for example, has shown, there are often wide disparities between the economic progress and wellbeing of groups within categories such as “black people” and “minority ethnic people” that feature in your report. Significant differences across education, health and employment have been demonstrated, for example, between families with origins in India and Bangladesh, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia. More rigorous and nuanced research is necessity to reveal a detailed and representative map of inequality in Britain and to target resources effectively.
Professor Charles Watters
Professor of wellbeing and social care, School of Education and Social Work, University of Sussex
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