Ethnic and religious penalties in a changing British labour market from 2002 to 2010: The case of unemployment

Most analyses of ethnic penalties in the UK labour market focus on one source of minority-group disadvantage only: Colour racism, based on people's selfidentified ethnicity. Some authors have argued that operating alongside those penalties, and in general exacerbating them, are further disadvantages reflecting cultural racism: in the UK it is argued that particular religious groups suffer these additional penalties- especially Muslims. A number of studies have confirmed the presence of these two types of disadvantage, but almost all of them have used cross-sectional data only and so were unable to test directly whether the penalties are more severe at times of economic recession and growing cultural tensions-such as those experienced in the UK after 9/11 and 7/7. This paper provides clear evidence of both the anticipated dual penalties and their increase at the end of the decade, using a very large annual cross-sectional survey for the years 2002 to 2010.