Estimating Ethnic Minority Poverty Rates in Britain Using Matched Survey DataISER External Seminars

Economic investigation of the experiences and prospects of Britain’s ethnic groups paints
a picture of multiple deprivation and disadvantage in areas such as earnings, employment
and occupational status. However, research on poverty amongst ethnic minorities in the
UK is hampered by problems of data availability since non-whites account for a small
proportion of the population. We address this problem by following an approach in the
poverty mapping literature. We estimate an econometric model on one data set (a
relatively small scale but detailed survey) and then apply elements of the fitted model to
another data set (larger-scale but less detailed). The analysis uses waves 1 and 11 of the
BHPS and the 1991 and 2001 Individual Census Samples of Anonymised Records as the
large scale dataset. The analysis enables us to calculate income-based welfare measures,
headcount poverty rates and poverty gaps over time, and at a level of regional and
ethnic disaggregation not previously available for the UK. There is considerable
heterogeneity in poverty levels between ethnic groups and across regions. Pakistanis and
Bangladeshi-headed households fare particularly badly and there is ethnic variation in the
impact of region on poverty rates. Over time there is some evidence of between-group
convergence in poverty rates.

Presented by:

Ken Clark (Department of Economics, University of Manchester)

Date & time:

June 5, 2006 3:00 pm - June 4, 2006 11:00 pm


External seminars home

News

Latest findings, new research

Publications search

Search all research by subject and author

Podcasts

Researchers discuss their findings and what they mean for society

Projects

Background and context, methods and data, aims and outputs

Events

Conferences, seminars and workshops

Survey methodology

Specialist research, practice and study

Taking the long view

ISER's annual report

Themes

Key research themes and areas of interest