THE EQUALITY IMPLICATIONS OF BEING A MIGRANT IN BRITAIN
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Income, benefits and financial exclusion
One of the public concerns around migration is the belief that immigrants are competing for the jobs of UK citizens (lowering the average income for some occupational groups) and, at the same time, are ‘benefit scroungers’ and a drain on the public purse. Research evidence and the available statistics, however, suggest otherwise. This chapter shows wide variations of income and benefit take-up between migrant groups, only some of which can be explained by their immigration status. Recent migrants, too, face problems of financial exclusion. 12.1 Income Table 12.1 shows Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates of the average gross hourly pay of country-of-birth groups. With rates above £15, USA, Canada and Australiaborn workers are significantly above the £11 rate for the UK-born population, while the nationalities at the bottom of the pay rankings are those born in the Philippines, Turkey, Portugal, Somalia and Poland. Table 12.1 Average gross hourly pay from main job of economically active working-age population, by country of birth, Britain, 2005/6 Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13= 13= 15 16 17 18 19= 19= 21 22 23 24
Average hourly pay (£) USA 17.10 Canada 15.60 Australia 15.20 South Africa 13.50 Uganda 13.40 Republic of Ireland 13.10 Kenya 12.50 France 12.30 Italy 11.90 Cyprus 11.70 Jamaica 11.60 India 11.50 UK 11.10 Zimbabwe 11.10 Nigeria 10.80 Sri Lanka 10.50 Pakistan 10.20 China 10.10 Ghana 9.40 Iran 9.40 Bangladesh 9.30 Philippines 8.30 Turkey 8.20 Portugal 8.10 Country of birth
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