Workplace gains elusive for highly educated UK minorities

A new study finds that despite high levels of education, UK-born children of immigrant parents face lower levels of employment compared to their white counterparts.

Second-generation ethnic minorities in Britain have fared much better in education than their white majority counterparts despite having much less advantaged backgrounds, yet are less likely to be employed, new research shows. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the U.K.-born children of immigrant parents had achieved “great success” in education – in sharp contrast to most ethnic minorities in other European countries – but had not experienced commensurate gains in the workplace. “We should celebrate their remarkable success in education, but ask hard questions about why this does not translate into equal success in the world of work,” said Lucinda Platt, professor at the London School of Economics and co-author of the report which used four decades of U.K. census data to track outcomes across generations.