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Publications






Working papers

Abstract

This study examines whether UK-born university graduates from Black, Asian, and Mixed/Other ethnic backgrounds experience wage penalties in the UK labor market. Drawing on restricted-access data from the Annual Population Survey, this paper provides solid evidence of ethnic pay inequalities, even after controlling for a comprehensive set of higher education, demographic, and occupation-related characteristics. Wage gaps are startlingly more pronounced for Black employees, standing at 16.7% for men and 4.5% for women compared to equally qualified White workers. The wage disparities hold up against a series of robustness checks and Oster’s method of correcting for selection on unobservables, suggesting racial discrimination.



Abstract

The UK Government has recently intensified its efforts to tackle ethnic disparities in students’ academic performance. In light of these interventions, this study draws on large-scale data of over one million UK university graduates for the academic years 2010/11­–2014/15 to investigate the extent of discrepancies in higher education attainment between ethnic minority students and their White counterparts. This work provides strong evidence that ethnic gaps in the probability of obtaining a “good” class of degree stubbornly persist, even after controlling for a plethora of personal socio-demographic traits, institutional factors, subject of study, prior attainment, and other pre-entry characteristics. White students are more likely to graduate with first-class or upper second-class honours (76%) than all ethnic minority groups, particularly with respect to Black minorities (61%-64%). Unlike studies to date, this paper uses a detailed ethnicity classification and explores interactive relationships to reveal heterogeneous effects of ethnicity on the likelihood of achieving a good degree, according to students’ gender, social class, type of university attended, and previous educational ability. This study’s findings should be of interest for national policymakers and universities to design and implement targeted policies that would improve the underperformance of ethnic minorities in the UK higher education.


Abstract

Dropping out of university induces economic costs to students, universities, and society. The UK Government has recently taken actions to diminish ethnic inequalities in non-completion rates. This study exploits extensive data of over one million first-degree students for the academic years 2010/11-2014/15 to explore how the university dropout behaviour varies across ethnic groups in the UK. For the first time in the ethnicity context, this paper distinguishes between compulsory withdrawal (because of academic failure) and voluntary attrition, acknowledging that the policy response to student withdrawal should be different depending on the dropout causes. The model results provide firm evidence that, on average, all ethnic minority groups (especially Black undergraduates) have a higher probability of academic failure than White students, while the latter are the most likely to withdraw voluntarily. Unlike studies to date, this work estimates interactive effects to show that the ethnic gaps in academic failure are more pronounced for men than women and smaller in the Russell Group universities relative to other institution types. These findings help better understand the mechanisms that produce diverse dropout outcomes and identify targeted policy-making strategies for each ethnic group.