White Irish top of wages league table: race report
Findings show system is no longer rigged against minority groups
A report that found people who identify as ‘white Irish’ typically earn considerably more than the average white Briton challenges old stereotypes, an economist has said.
The Sewell Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (Cred) found that the average earnings of Chinese, Indian and ‘white Irish’ exceed those of white British people — with the Irish topping the list, having average earnings 41% higher that the white British.
At the other end of the scale were Pakistani and mixed white/ black African communities, earning 15% less on average than white British people.
The report found that while white Irish scored very well in terms of educational attainment, Irish Traveller children did worst of all in terms of educational achievement.
Economist Dr Esmond Birnie said the Irish in Britain were “prospering”, and this challenged old and lazy stereotypical views.
He told the Belfast Telegraph: “The immediate explanation for this is a relatively high level of educational qualifications: higher percentages of the white Irish having at least 3 A-levels and progressing to high education.
“The white Irish unemployment rate was also relatively low.”
The landmark review, published in recent days, said Britain was no longer a country where the “system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities”.
Its chairman said it had found no evidence of “institutional racism”, and the report criticised the way the term has been applied, saying it should not be used as a “catch-all” phrase for any micro-aggression.
The Commission put forward a series of recommendations for actions to tackle the ethnic disparities it identified around pay, education and employment.
The report also highlighted a growing divergence in educational achievement between black Africans and black Caribbeans in the UK, saying that the black Caribbean group was the only ethnic group who performed lower than white British pupils.
But the panel faced a backlash over the report, commissioned in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, with politicians and other public figures describing it as insulting and divisive.
Dr Birnie, senior economist at the Ulster University Business School, added the prosperity of Irish people in Britain was a less headline-grabbing conclusion, but a highly significant one.
He continued: “According to Sewell Commission data, in 2019 the median pay of those self-identifying as white Irish in England and Wales was 40.5% higher than those identified as white British.
“In fact, no other ethnic group in England and Wales was paid as well — they were top of the pay league table.”
Dr Birnie added: “All this is very far from the old stereotypes of the Irish in Britain as navvies or in low wage manual jobs.
“In fact, for some time they have been more likely to be employed in financial services than construction or hospitality,” he added.
“Commentary on Ireland-uk economic relations can be dominated by the big political shifts — Brexit, the Protocol, rumours of a border poll — but sometimes it is the underlying private sector actions, migration and family ties which are just as powerful and the Irish in Britain are, on average, prospering.”