British Employers Refrain from Hiring Muslim Women
The study found that the unemployment rate for Muslim women is between 5.9 per cent and 27 percent depending on the woman’s ethnic background. By contrast, the rate for white non-Muslim women is 3.5 percent.
A similar gap was noted among professional occupations whereby 8.5 percent
to 23 percent of Muslim women are employed depending on ethnicity, compared to
32 percent of white non-Muslim women.
The study dismissed the idea that this was because Muslim women may be less
likely to have educational qualifications than other social groups, as the same
trends were observed even when both Muslim and non-Muslim women had the exact
same credentials.
The research is a joint undertaking between Dr Nabil Khattab of the Doha
Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar and Dr Shereen Hussein of King’s
College London and involved data analysis of more than a quarter of a million
women’s lives. It was presented at the British Sociological Association's
annual conference.
Dr Khattab said: "Economic activity among Muslim women in the UK remains
considerably lower and their unemployment rate remains significantly higher
than the majority group even after controlling for qualifications and other
individual characteristics.”
He added that Muslim women’s dress might reveal their religion to potential
employers in more obvious ways than Muslim men or non-Muslim women, which
enabled Islamophobic employers to discriminate. He said: "They wear a hijab or
other religious symbols which makes them more visible and as such exposed to
greater discrimination.”
Last year hate crimes against Muslims in London were found to have risen by
70 per cent upon the previous year. In particular, the Met Police noted a
number of Islamophobic incidents in which women wearing headscarves were
attacked and strangers attempted to remove their veils.
Source: World Bulletin
