Policy Hub
On 14 November 2005, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) published a report (Migration and social mobility: the life chances of Britain's minority ethnic communities) which finds that younger generations from many of Britain's minority ethnic groups are succeeding in breaking through the class barrier. Educational achievements have helped children of working-class parents in the Caribbean, African, Indian and Chinese communities to obtain managerial and professional jobs at a faster rate than their white counterparts.
But the study, based on surveys tracing children's progress over 30 years, finds that young people from the Pakistani community are an exception. Although their parents are heavily concentrated in the working class, they show less upward mobility than children from white manual workers' families. Bangladeshis are similarly disadvantaged but unlike young Pakistanis, this can be more readily explained by education and other characteristics of their backgrounds.
The full report can be viewed on the JRF website (pdf).