United Kingdom
Low pay by ethnicity
Key points
- Half of Bangladeshis and Pakistanis earn less than £7 per hour.
- See the indicator on trends in low pay.
Graph 1: By group
View Graph as PDF Right click to save large version of Graph as PNG
Why this indicator was originally chosen
For some ethnic groups, low pay is a matter of particular concern.
Definitions and data sources
The graph shows the proportion of working-age employees in each ethnic group who are paid less than £7 per hour.
The data source is the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and relates to the United Kingdom. To improve statistical reliability, the data is the average for the latest three years. People whose hourly pay rates cannot be calculated from the survey data have been excluded from the analysis.
The division between different ethnic minority groups is driven by the data. For sample size reasons, people from a mixed ethnic background are excluded from the analysis.
Overall adequacy of the indicator: limited. The LFS is a well-established, quarterly government survey, designed to be representative of the population as a whole, but those classified as being of ethnic minority groups together a variety of disparate groups. Furthermore, there are some doubts about the reliability of its low pay data and the sample sizes for some of the ethnic groups are very small.
External links
- For a discussion of the relationship between low pay and income poverty, see the 2006 report by the New Policy Institute and the Bevan Foundation entitled Dreaming of £250 a week: a scoping study of in-work poverty in Wales and the 2004 Joseph Rowntree Foundation report entitled Low pay, household resources and poverty.
- See the Low Pay Commission site and their annual reports on the National Minimum Wage.
Relevant 2007 Public Service Agreements
None directly relevant.
Relevant government policies
The numbers
Graph 1
| Bangladeshi | 50% |
|---|---|
| Black - African | 35% |
| Black - Caribbean | 23% |
| Indian | 31% |
| Pakistani | 46% |
| White - British | 31% |
| White - other | 32% |