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Ethnic minority disadvantage in the labour market has been a matter of growing concern in many developed countries in recent years. Discrimination on the basis of ascriptive factors, such as social origins or ethnicity, is generally regarded to be a source of economic inefficiency and waste. More importantly, it is a source of social injustice and social exclusion. This book explores ethnic inequalities in the labour market, particularly with respect to access to jobs. It examines whether ethnic minorities compete on equal terms in the labour market with equally qualified members of the charter populations and focuses on the experiences of the ‘second generation’, that is, the children of migrants who have themselves grown up and been educated in the countries of destination. In addition to the classic immigration countries of Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United States, the book also covers the major new immigration countries of Western Europe, such as Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and Sweden, as well as South Africa.

This chapter provides an introduction to the volume. It describes the scope of the work, namely the comparative analysis of ethnic educational inequalities in ten Western countries at different stages of the educational career, and provides the intellectual rationale. In particular, the authors ask whether ethnic inequalities can be explained by the differences in the socioeconomic circumstances of the different ethnic communities, or whether minorities experience additional ethnic penalties (or premia) over and above their socioeconomic disadvantages (or, more rarely, socioeconomic advantages). They also ask whether some countries provide more favourable contexts for the integration of the second generation than do others, and if so what are the key features of the most favourable contexts? The authors conclude by summarising the main findings of the study.

We examine whether context matters for the integration of second-generation children of migrants into Western educational systems. Using data on ten destination countries and on five distinct educational outcomes at various stages of the educational career, we study educational inequalities between the second-generation immigrants and their majority peers. We find that institutional and migration variables affect the magnitude of ethnic educational disadvantage, even when social background is accounted for. Ethnic inequality is greater in countries like Belgium and Germany with more strongly tracked educational systems, and in countries with limited multicultural policies. In contrast, ethnic inequality is lower if the first-generation migrants are selected based on their skills, compared with the non-migrant population in origin countries. Our interpretation is that more positively selected migrants are more ambitious for their children to succeed within Western educational systems, and their children are more likely to take advantage of the opportunities offered them.

We introduce our comparative study on minority and majority youth in four European countries by presenting the problem, basic concepts, theoretical starting points and our strategy of analysis. We address differences in integration across (i) immigrant generations (exposure), (ii) immigrant origin groups and (iii) receiving countries, for several indicators of structural, cultural and social integration. We find few and unsystematic differences in integration across receiving countries. Integration is quite remote for some aspects of social and cultural integration and slowest for those originating in poorer regions at greater cultural and socioeconomic distances, such as the Middle East and Africa. Exposure to the host country leads to decreasing differences in language proficiency and host country identification, but not in liberal attitudes and tolerance, religion and religiosity, or inter-ethnic friendships. We conclude that lingering differences should partly be understood against a backdrop of deeply entrenched structural phenomena such as socialisation, stratification and segregation.

This chapter argues for a causal connection between (rising) military inequality and (declining) battlefield performance. It does so by first exploring the nature and severity of ethnic inequalities within political communities before detailing how exposure to state policies can affect soldier beliefs and actions. Next, the chapter considers how military commanders, aware of possible issues arising from inequality, adopt a mixture of four strategies to manage soldiers from suspect populations. The chapter then examines how these strategies induce trade-offs between combat power and cohesion that actually undermine battlefield performance. Finally, the chapter considers how enemy actions can intensify these internal contradictions and trade-offs before concluding with a discussion of how several of the arguments' core assumptions can be relaxed.

This book examines the factors that drove people with ethnic identities to support nationalism in some cases but not in others. Drawing on variation in mass nationalist mobilization and regional secessionism across sixteen ethnic republics of the Russian Federation, it shows why ordinary people respond to the appeals of nationalist leaders calling for a radical change in the status quo. It explores how popular support for nationalism develops as part of political mobilization, a process that transforms the meaning of ethnic identity, and suggests that people throw their support behind nationalist movements after developing a group grievance. Group grievances arise from the interaction between people's experiences in local labor markets and issues concerning ethnic economic inequality that were articulated by ethnic entrepreneurs. It is these grievances that inspire support for nationalist transformation and account for the rise of ethnonationalism.

This chapter examines the patterning of ethnic inequalities in health in Great Britain. It discusses some of the assumptions that have underpinned much of the research and policy debate in relation to ethnic differences in health, and illustrates how far such differences are likely to be a consequence of the social inequalities faced by minority ethnic people in Britain. The chapter demonstrates how socioeconomic inequalities are too-readily dismissed as a potential explanation for ethnic inequalities in health, and shows how experiences of racial harassment and discrimination might also lead to an increased risk of poor health.

This chapter examines ethnic inequalities under New Labour. When the party was elected to government in 1997, it inherited a legacy of ethnic inequalities in housing, education, employment, health, and criminal justice outcomes. In the early research evidence from the First Survey of Ethnic Minorities, racialised disadvantage and discrimination in the lives of all minority groups were prevalent in the mid-1960s. Since the 1970s, however, while the broad pattern of ethnic inequalities has persisted, there has also been considerable differentiation, with those of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin, and to a lesser extent those of black origin, generally faring worse than those of Indian and Chinese origin. While the earlier period provided evidence of direct and indirect racial discrimination, the intervening years revealed that a complex interplay of socioeconomic, institutional, demographic, structural, and cultural factors was contributing to less favourable outcomes for minority groups. To counter discrimination and ethnic inequalities, New Labour adopted policies that aimed to promote race equality. One of these is the 2000 Race Relations Act, which tasked all authorities with promoting equality of opportunity and good relations between different racial groups and with auditing existing policies to see whether they had different implications for different ethnic groups. This chapter examines the impact of these policies on long-standing inequalities in education, policing, and employment. It also assesses the New Labour strategies to reduce ethnic inequalities as well as providing some thoughts on where further policy developments are required.

This chapter examines the success of the second generation in completing tertiary education in Belgium, Canada, England and Wales, France, the Netherlands and the USA (the only countries for which appropriate data were available). The ethnic inequalities found in higher education largely reflect patterns seen earlier in the educational career but there is at the same time clear evidence of progress relative to majority populations. Thus, if we compare the second-generation groups and countries which are covered in both Chapter 3 and Chapter 7, we find that there are thirteen significant ethnic penalties (that is, negative estimates after controls for socioeconomic background) in Chapter 3 (out of a total of twenty-seven that we estimated), but only three in Chapter 7. This is an important and novel finding, suggesting that higher education may give valuable ‘second chances’ to disadvantaged ethnic minorities. This pattern applies in all six countries.

This chapter examines how group grievances develop among people with ethnic minority identities. It begins by comparing all the issues in the founding documents of nationalist movements in seven Russian republics: Tatarstan, Tuva, Chechnya, Yakutia, Bashkortostan, Mordovia, and Mari El. It then explores the issues involved in the founding of the Chechen nationalist movement in Chechnya before proceeding with a cross-case comparative analysis of nationalist politics and of the discourse employed by ethnic entrepreneurs in Tuva, Mari El, and Komi. It shows that ethnic groups are not necessarily motivated by the prospect of future wealth to mobilize behind a program of national sovereignty. People supported nationalism only in those republics where nationalist leaders framed issues of ethnic economic inequality.

This chapter examines New Labour's strategies to reduce ethnic inequalities. It evaluates the impact of general policies and specifically targeted initiatives on longstanding inequalities between ethnic groups in education, employment and income, and policing. At the forefront was the 2000 Race Relations (Amendment) Act, which places a statutory duty on all public authorities to promote equality of opportunity and good relations between different racial groups. Aside from New Labour's legislative framework to produce racial equality, the prevention of social exclusion has been pivotal, with a focus on reducing multiple disadvantage for all groups.

This concluding chapter summarizes the book's findings and explains how they challenge common notions regarding the power of ethnicity to influence political behavior. As can be seen in the experiences of Russia's republics, nationalism is a highly contingent and fragile political event rather than a permanent one. This is contrary to the assumption that ethnic groups have fixed, uniform preferences that support a nationalist program—a line of thinking that tends to underestimate the role of politics in shaping people's preferences and to overpredict the incidence of ethnic conflict. This chapter reiterates the finding that popular support for nationalism increased in republics where nationalists articulated a message of ethnic economic inequality, but not in republics where nationalists raised other issues. It also discusses the policy implications of the fact that ordinary people may be convinced by ethnified framings of economic issues put forward by their leaders. Finally, it conments on the claims about ethnic group subordination made by ethnic entrepreneurs in China and Iraq.

In this chapter we explore the completion of upper secondary education. The central question here is whether the high rates of ethnic minority continuation into upper secondary education lead to a closing of the attainment gaps with the majority group. The story which emerges is that there are considerable continuities over the secondary school career. Ethnic disadvantages have not cumulated, but neither have they been eliminated. Nevertheless, the picture at the end of upper secondary education is not simply a repeat of the picture at the end of lower secondary. Overall, we find that in Canada, France and the USA the ethnic penalties found in test scores at the end of lower secondary have been mitigated by the end of upper secondary, while in Sweden the movements are more likely to be in the opposite direction.

In many countries there have been massive changes toward support for the expansionist view, most recently during the 1990s and onwards, where politicians in England and Sweden have gone so far as to claim that at least half of a cohort should pursue tertiary level education. In fact, equality and expansion are intrinsically intertwined, but not because expansion leads to equality. Instead, what is argued here is that, if university education is to expand at the same time as academic standards are upheld, equalization is a necessary condition. It is the aim of this chapter to summarize recent sociological theory and empirical evidence on social and ethnic inequality in education in order to highlight the relation between equalization and expansion. In doing that, I will also discuss what potential institutional changes in the educational system have for the pursuit of educational expansion.