Policy briefings

The Policy Briefing series is part of our commitment to working with policy makers to address issues of ethnic inequalities.

Politics

The University of Manchester with the financial help of the ESRC (grant number ES/ R009341/1) has conducted the first census of all sitting councillors in all four constitutive nations of the UK.

We look beyond averages to see how the numbers are shaped and what might explain under-representation.

Migration, integration and neighbourhoods

A new survey of research on Britain’s ethnic minority populations highlights the deepening of social integration as measured by the residential geography, educational attainment, citizenship practices and political engagement. The persistence of ethnic inequalities and new policies restricting the access of recent migrants to state services raise significant challenges to long term processes of integration.

The data in this briefing is based on discussions at the “Migration, Integration and Neighbourhoods: Where’s the harm?" residential conference at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park held on 21 - 22 November 2014 in partnership with the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE).

Addressing ethnic inequalities in social mobility

New research on Britain’s largest longitudinal studies highlights how rates of social mobility vary within ethnic groups by gender, immigrant generation and class. Drawing on forty years of data, Li and Heath defined rates of social mobility through identifying the percentage who moved from the occupational class in which they were born.

The data in this briefing is based on discussions at the “Addressing ethnic inequalities in social mobility” residential conference at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park held on 13 - 15 November 2013 in partnership with CoDE.

Diversity or deprivation - what's the issue?

The population of England and Wales is increasingly diverse; in 2011, 20% of people identified with an ethnic group other than White British. This growth in ethnic diversity is reflected in the places where we live. But the areas where most ethnic minority people live are some of the most deprived in the country. Our research demonstrates the disadvantages of living in deprived areas, but also the positives of living in ethnically diverse areas.

Evidence in this brief summarises work conducted at The University of Manchester highlighting the need for policy to focus on poverty and deprived neighbourhoods, not on the ethnicity of the people who live in them. It shows the benefits that are associated with ethnic residential diversity once area deprivation is accounted for.