Ethnicity at work: the case of British minority workers in the long-term care sector
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to explore the effect of ethnicity and separate this from the other dynamics associated with migration among members of the long-term care workforce in England focusing on the nature and structure of their jobs. The analysis examines interactions between ethnicity, gender, and age, and their relations with “meso” factors related to job and organizational characteristics and “macro” level factors related to local area characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyses new national workforce data, the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC), n=357,869. The paper employs descriptive statistical analysis and a set of logistic regression models.
Findings
The results indicate that labour participation of British black and minority ethnic (BME) groups in long-term care work is much lower than previously believed. There are variations in nature of work and possibly job security by ethnicity.
Research limitations/implications
While the national sample is large, the data were not purposively collected to examine differentials in reasons to work in the care sector by different ethnicity.
Practical implications
The analysis highlights the potential to actively promote social care work among British BME groups to meet workforce shortages, especially at a time where immigration policies are restricting the recruitment of non-European Economic Area nationals.
Originality/value
The analysis provides a unique insight into the participation of British BME workers in the long-term care sector, separate from that of migrant workers.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Skills for Care for providing the latest anonymous NMDS-SC data files. This work is funded under the Department of Health Policy Research Programme support for the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at King's College London. The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone and should not necessarily be interpreted as those of the Department of Health or Skills for Care.
Citation
Hussein, S., Manthorpe, J. and Ismail, M. (2014), "Ethnicity at work: the case of British minority workers in the long-term care sector", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 177-192. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-02-2013-0009
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited