Post-graduation Outcomes of Ethnic Minorities from British Elite Universities: Is Getting in Enough?

• In Event: 452 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 12. Race and Education

Abstract

There is an interesting paradox between studies looking at the overall level of educational qualifications of ethnic minorities in the UK, which show that ethnic groups surpass their white peers in terms of qualifications achieved, and those highlighting the struggles of such groups on the labour market. There is, thus, a gap in our understanding of the sources of ethnic penalties on the labour market. We attempt to examine the sources of such disadvantage by looking at the post -graduation outcomes of ethnic minority graduates from elite universities in the UK. These universities are deemed to have a positive impact on the labour market outcomes of its graduates but are also renowned for excluding ethnic minorities from their ranks. We want to see whether the advantage of attending a prestigious university in the UK is the same across ethnic groups for recent graduates and whether ethnic minorities from ‘good’ universities manage to avoid the disadvantages experienced by their peers on the labour market.

Using administrative data of recent graduates from Russell Group universities, we examine their post-graduation outcomes 6 month after graduation. We focus on ethnic penalties, that is differences in outcomes between ethnic minority and white graduates, net of degree performance and social background measures. We find that whilst graduates from most ethnic minority groups tend to follow an ‘educational investment’ path after graduation, those who find themselves in the labour market may still have a hard time getting onto the ladder.

Authors

• Laurence Lessard-Phillips, Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS)

• Maria Pampaka, University of Manchester

• Daniel Swain, University of Manchester