07 May 2009 – Publication of DWP research report 576: “Ethnicity and child poverty”

This report aims to significantly develop the evidence base on ethnicity and child poverty. The report draws on a range of data sources to present a variety of poverty-related indicators - including income poverty, poverty persistence, material deprivation, and worklessness - for children and families from different ethnic groups. The child poverty rates observed for most ethnic minority groups are higher than the national average; the report uses regression analysis techniques to examine whether this is due to increased levels of poverty risk factors amongst families from these groups, or whether it requires further explanation.

The research was carried out by Lucinda Platt from the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex. It uses data from the Family Resources Survey and Households Below Average Income dataset, the Millennium Cohort Study, the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study, and the Labour Force Survey.

A feasibility study is being published alongside the report as a DWP working paper (DWP Working paper No. 69, Ethnicity and Child Poverty Feasibility Study) which provides additional detail on the data sources used and the rationale for the research.

Key findings

• On most of the measures presented in the report - which include income poverty, poverty persistence, material deprivation, and worklessness - children from all ethnic minority groups are disadvantaged compared to white British children. Levels of poverty are particularly high for Pakistani and Bangladeshi children.
• These differences are partly explained by risk factors: with some exceptions, children from ethnic minority groups are more likely than white British children to live in families which experience poverty risk factors such as lone parenthood, large numbers of children, worklessness or a deprived local area. The exceptions to this are Indian families, who generally experience similar levels of risk factors to white British families.
• However, the differences in risk factors are not large enough to fully explain the differences in poverty presented: even when family risk factors are controlled for, some children from ethnic minority groups are disadvantaged compared to the white majority – the author refers to this unexplained disadvantage as an ‘ethnic poverty penalty’.

Ethnic Penalties

• Children in Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, black African and black Caribbean families experience an income poverty penalty, although when the analysis focuses only on families with young children, a penalty is not observed for black Caribbean and black African children.
• Children in Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, black African and black Caribbean families experience a deprivation penalty.
• Bangladeshi and Pakistani children experience an ethnic penalty with regard to the risk of their household becoming a workless household.
• The report asks whether ethnic poverty penalties have reduced in recent years. This analysis was only possible for groups experiencing penalties associated with moving out of work, and only where the sample sizes allowed. This restricted the analysis to only Pakistani families who experienced penalties associated with moving out of work. This limited analysis provides no evidence of penalties reducing in the last decade.

Effect of area

• The report investigated the role of local area in ethnic minority worklessness. Ethnic group has an effect on the risk of household worklessness, even when controlling for local area unemployment rates. However, concentration of ethnic groups within the local area does not have an additional impact on chances of living in a workless household.

Religious affiliation

• The analysis presented provides no evidence that there are poverty penalties for children of particular religious affiliation (as opposed to children of particular ethnicity).

Notes to Editors

1. This report is published on 7 May 2009 in the DWP research report series (report number 576). It can be found on the internet at Research Reports 1990-2008.
2. This project was carried out by an independent research organisation, the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex. The report author was Lucinda Platt.

 

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