Structural issues: gender, ethnicity and social class

As we have seen, there is a common perception that unemployment is a problem which stems from the choices made by individuals. Some of us are keen to find jobs and work, whilst others are lazy, work-shy and/or incapable of finding ourselves work. But if unemployment depended upon the free will and independent choices of individuals, then we would not expect to find social patterns among groups in the population based on such things as gender, ethnicity and social class.

In relation to gender, for example, official figures show consistently higher rates of unemployment for men than for women, with the unemployment rate for men sometimes two and a half times that of women. In explaining these figures, however, we need to recognise that married women are sometimes ineligible for benefits and do not show up as being registered unemployed. (Refer back to Section 4.4 on measuring unemployment.) In fact, where partners are cohabiting, entitlements to state support are often affected. Despite rates of unemployment being higher for men than women, it must be noted also that women are more likely than men to occupy part-time employment, and many of these jobs are low-paid and low-status work (Edgell & Granter 2019). Also note that this impacts the gender pay gap, with men earning on average significantly more than women in nearly all sectors of work. Nevertheless, these differences in unemployment rates between men and women are gendered differences and therefore structural, not simply a matter of an individual’s personal decision to work.

Another structural factor that impacts unemployment is social class. The conception of class within sociology is complex, but here we will take it to refer broadly to occupation. As we have seen in the earlier section, the occupations available to people and the contracts which govern them change over time. Research shows that ‘lower’ social classes are generally more likely to experience unemployment than other social classes. Table 8.1a shows figures for unemployment by occupation between January 2016 and March 2018.

If you place your finger on the table and shift it across from left to right, you will notice a range ofdifferent figures for different occupational groups. Those occupations starting from the left tend to be those occupied by the ‘higher’ social classes (managers and senior officials, professionals and those with jobs requiring technical skills). These are followed by the middle sections (administrative, secretarial and skilled occupations). Those on the right (sales and customer services, machine operatives and elementary occupations) tend to have occupations typically defined predominantly as working class. If you run your finger downwards in any one occupational-type group, you will see a consistency with the level of unemployment. This itself shows that different sectors are subject to certain levels of unemployment. Let’s take two occupational groups and compare them. For those in ‘professional occupations', the Labour Force Survey counted 89,000 unemployed between January and March 2018. But for those who occupy ‘elementary occupations' the number is two and a half times as many, with 232,000 unemployed in the same year. Given the consistency of these figures over several years, we can say that those who occupy ‘professional occupations' are less likely to suffer the effects of unemployment than those who occupy the ‘elementary occupations’. What is apparent and most important is this: the differences in unemployment are structural differences to do with societal factors that impact the opportunities for certain groups of people (in this case, certain occupational groups/social classes) to be employed and cannot be simply a matter of choices made by individuals. The structural barriers determined by one’s social class have led some sociologists to describe it as ‘the class ceiling’ (see Friedman & Laurison 2019).

Evidence concerning ethnicity and unemployment also shows clear variations, with black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups suffering from much higher rates of unemployment than those of the ethnic majority. The Labour Force Survey carried out in 2018 found that just 4 percent of white people were unemployed compared with 7 percent of all other ethnic groups combined (Labour Force Survey 2018). Ethnic minorities can find employment particularly difficult when faced with racist prejudice before they even enter the workplace. In 2013 there was an employment tribunal over race discrimination. A man claimed that Virgin Atlantic had

Brian McDonough

Table 8.1 Unemployed by occupation of last job (up to March 2018)

Source: Labour Force Survey (accessed March 2020) Office for National Statisticsdiscriminated against him on the grounds of race when it rejected his job application, allegedly because of his African name. The man was a British citizen with a degree in international relations and was shocked to find he had not been interviewed for a job in a Swansea call centre working for Virgin’s organisation. Suspicious that it could be due to his foreign-sounding name, he reapplied with a typically British name and was invited several times to attend an interview. ‘There was an enormous difference in the way I was treated when I used a British name’, he said (The Guardian 2013). This experience is not unprecedented. Stories from applicants and recruiters suggest that prejudice and discrimination are still commonplace. The racist attitudes towards job seekers serves only to worsen unemployment for ethnic minority groups.