Title:
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Deconstructing 'Segregation' : Exploring South Asian Geographies and Inequality in Britain
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This thesis investigates the relationship between the spatial
concentration of South Asian ethnic groups and experiences of inequality in
education, employment and health. Ethnic and racial segregation has become
of increasing concern in Britain over the past decade, but there has been little
research that has examined the relationship between the spatial concentration
of minority ethnic groups and their socio-economic outcomes in various
domains. This study sets out to address this gap in the literature.
In recent years, segregation has become an increasingly ambiguous and
value-laden concept. The shift in its meaning to denote the self-segregation of
minority ethnic groups in Britain has made it an increasingly problematic
concept for investigating inequality. At the same time the rise to prominence of
research on segregation in the US has greatly influenced academic research on
the matter in Britain. In this thesis I adopt a more critical approach to
segregation in Britain by framing South Asian geographies within a socialhistorical
context by taking account of the nature of migration and settlement of
South Asians to Britain, and the structural context, namely discriminatory
housing and labour market pOlicies, within which this occurred. In light of this, I
suggest that a more appropriate measure of spatial segregation is
neighbourhood deprivation, which more accurately reflects the material
disadvantage of many areas of high minority ethnic concentration. Thus, the
focus of my empirical analysis looks at the extent to which the divergence in
socio-economic outcomes across geographies for South Asian and White
British ethnic groups is related to the South Asian concentration of
neighbourhoods, and the extent to which this is associated with levels of
neighbourhood deprivation. I also look at the extent to which differences
between the South Asian and White British ethnic groups are associated with
neighbourhood co-ethnic concentration and deprivation.
I address the research question using two national datasets.
Comprehensive neighbourhood data available from 2001 Census tabular data is
used to obtain data measuring the ethnic composition of neighbourhoods and
the employment, education and health outcomes of ethnic groups at the
neighbourhood level. With this data I examine the relationship between levels
of neighbourhood South Asian concentration, levels of neighbourhood
deprivation, and outcomes in education, employment and health for Indian,
Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and White British ethnic groups. The second dataset I
make use of is the 2005 Citizenship Survey which includes additional requested
data on the ethnic composition and deprivation levels of neighbourhoods for
respondents in the survey. I use multilevel logistic regression methods to
determine the extent to which the neighbourhood context matters.
I find neighbourhood deprivation to be more important in explaining the
divergence in education, employment, and health across geographies than
levels of South Asian concentration for all ethnic groups. I find the negative
association between Pakistani and Bangladeshi concentration and education
and employment outcomes to be explained when levels of neighbourhood
deprivation are considered. In terms of inequality, while, on average, the Indian
group report better or equal socio-economic outcomes compared with the White
British group, the disadvantage experienced by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis is
not explained by levels of co-ethnic concentration. Factors such as human
capital and household income are shown to be more important. My evidence
suggests that policy approaches to tackling inequality should focus on area
deprivation, rather than the ethnic composition of neighbourhoods.
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