Minority ethnic women's experiences in Scotland 2024: intersectional evidence review

6. Work

In this chapter, we explore multiple dimensions of experiences in the labour market. This aids understanding of a range of different measures, such as if Scotland’s workforce represents population demographics, and where groups of people might face barriers to accessing training and career progression, positive economic benefits, sustainable employment, the ability to work in a diverse environment or other dimensions of fair work. These visions are outlined in the Fair Work Action Plan^[29], which brings together Scottish Government’s Gender Pay Gap Strategy, and the new Anti-Racist Employment Strategy.

For context, Research from Close the Gap published in 2019 highlighted key issues minority ethnic women^[30] face in recruitment, education, training and development, pay, under-employment, workplace culture, and their caring responsibilities.^[31] This report links a number of statistics^[32], including employment rates and pay gaps, for minority ethnic women with their experiences and opportunities in the labour market. Close the Gap’s survey found that women experience discrimination, racial prejudice and bias in nearly all areas mentioned above. Respondents to this research suggest that BME women may face barriers to feeling included in conversations that impact their pay and working conditions or other areas that impact collective agreement or perceived employee voice. These experiences differed between minority ethnic group, for example African women were more likely to report experiencing these in relation to recruitment than the average response across all participants. Although the research was based on a small sample size^[33], the findings give insight into the employment experiences of BME women in Scotland and how this might influence participation in the labour market. The publication also raises the importance of an intersectional approach to policy making in this space and will be referenced throughout this chapter.

6.1. Economic activity

Evidence exploring economic activity highlighted the importance of assessing a range of both quantitative and qualitative sources to fully understand minority ethnic women’s participation in the labour market.

Demographic statistics highlight the differences in participation in the labour market in relation to inactivity and employment rates. According to the Scotland’s Labour Market: Protected Characteristics publication in 2024, both women and minority ethnic groups^[34] have higher rates of economic inactivity^[35] compared to men and white ethnic groups. The publication’s dataset does not provide intersectional information on minority ethnic women.

The NPF indicator ‘Gender balance in organisations’ examines minority ethnic women’s and minority ethnic men’s employment rates^[36]. In 2022, the gap between male and female employment rates for minority ethnic groups was 8.0 percentage points, showing that minority ethnic men have a higher employment rate than minority ethnic women. In comparison, this gap was only 3.1 percentage points between white women and white men. While information about why this is the case is not collected through the ONS Annual Population Survey, qualitative research (explained below) begins to demonstrate barriers that minority ethnic women face in employment which may influence their participation in the labour market.

6.2. Pay

The reviewed evidence in this sub-chapter indicates that women from minority ethnic backgrounds generally earn less than women from white backgrounds.

The Labour Market Statistics for Scotland by Ethnicity publication^[37] reports that in 2019 the median hourly pay for employed^[38] minority ethnic^[39] women was £9.66 and for employed white^[40] women was £11.53, amounting to an ethnicity pay gap of 16.2%. Additionally, when considering only those with degrees from Scottish higher education institutes, the Longitudinal Education Outcomes from Universities: 2019-20: Scotland publication suggests that first-degree female graduates from Scottish higher education institutes from ‘non-white backgrounds’ earned less than females from ‘white backgrounds’ as well as male graduates from both ‘non-white backgrounds’ and ‘white backgrounds’, five years after graduation.

The Fair Work Framework flags the importance of the Real Living Wage and secure employment. Unfortunately, no information was available on the Real Living Wage in Scotland for minority ethnic women. In terms of security, an intersectional analysis of Scottish Labour Market statistics, which draws on the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Annual Population Survey, found no statistically significant difference between the proportion of minority ethnic women^[41] and white women^[42] who were in contractually secure employment^[43] in 2023. Despite this, other evidence suggests differences in economic activity among minority ethnic women and comparison groups.

Qualitative evidence related to the impact of pay inequality will be explored further in the Poverty chapter.

6.3. Occupational Segregation

As utilised in the Gender Equality Index, occupational segregation is described as the unequal concentration of men and women in different kinds of jobs (horizontal segregation) and at different levels (vertical segregation).

Occupational segregation can occur at a number of stages in seeking and securing employment. Research by Close the Gap, published in 2019,^[44] for instance, found that some respondents (14%) agreed that employability support programmes can “funnel BME women into low-paid, gendered, precarious work, such as cleaning or retail, rather than actively disrupting occupational segregation and adopting a personalised approach to support”. In securing employment, a third of the survey respondents reported that their current job did not match their skill or qualification level. The research also found that minority ethnic women face barriers when trying to convert qualifications gained in other countries, which may provide one example of why occupational segregation exists. According to the survey findings, 30% of respondents had qualifications from other countries but 73% of them had “not converted their qualification to the UK equivalent”. When asked why, 31% said that the process was too long, 26% said it was too complex, and 21% said it was too expensive. The report highlights that barriers to employment may also be related to a number of additional influences which are important to explore further, such as language barriers, migrant and refugee status, and caring responsibilities.

The Employer Skills Survey measures skills underutilisation as ‘the proportion of establishments with at least one employee with skills and qualifications more advanced than required in their current job’. Given this data is collected at establishment level, we cannot ascertain variations by equality characteristics.

6.4. Specific Employment Sectors

Research explored for this Evidence Review found that minority ethnic women may face racial discrimination in the workplace. Some studies, discussed below, provide more in-depth insight into minority ethnic women’s experiences in various specific employment sectors which tell us more about representation in these areas. This evidence does not cover all employment sectors, so the extent of applicability of the findings across all sectors is unclear, but it does show the importance of considering employment specific culture and representation of minority ethnic women.

Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses

An independent review commissioned by the Scottish Government, Pathways: A New Approach for Women in Entrepreneurship, highlighted that between 2018 and 2021 there was both a gender and ethnic minority gap present in who was leading a company incorporation, with ‘ethnic female-led’ businesses being the lowest represented.^[45] Data on women’s and minority ethnic persons’ leadership in small businesses is available in the Small Business Survey Scotland, however intersectional breakdowns of business leadership were not available for this evidence review.

The Small Business Survey Scotland 2022-23 found that only 22% of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) employers in Scotland were women-led and a further 21% of SMEs were ‘equally-led’, with an equal number of men and women in the management team. Just 5% were Minority Ethnic Group (MEG)-led (defined as a business with the majority of the combined total number of owners, partners and directors being of an ethnic minority background).

Teaching

In relation to teaching, the most relevant statistics found were sourced from the College sector where, according to the Scottish College Staffing Data (2022-23), Black and minority ethnic (BME) staff made up 2.6% (361) of all headcounts in 2022-23. The proportion of BME female college teaching staff has decreased by 0.2pp in the past year to 2.2% in 2022-23. In contrast, the proportion of BME male teaching staff has increased by 0.1pp in the past year to 3.0.% in 2022-23.

Research conducted in Glasgow for the Scottish Government strategy to increase and retain minority ethnic teachers in all areas of education found that the main barriers to a career in teaching included difficulties to transfer training from other countries, racism from pupils and parents, language barriers where English was not a first language, and a lack of positive role models. An update to this work also highlighted the importance of representation of minority ethnic teachers in schools for minority ethnic children but also for all students more generally, who become more exposed to a diverse range of life experiences and perspectives. However, this work does not focus on intersectional issues for minority ethnic women specifically. Qualitative research on the experiences of Black women teachers, conducted in England, may be indicative of barriers to teaching that may be experienced by minority ethnic women in Scotland.^[46] This research platforms experiences of black educators who felt that due to their duality of being a black women, career progression was limited (when compared to white women, and both white and minority ethnic men); there was a need to take on additional work without formal recognition or pay uplifts (one example showed this was offered to a white colleague); they felt undervalued; and faced microaggressions. Although this may differ in comparison to Scotland and a number of other factors, this research highlights a potential requirement to understand further differences and experiences in education to provide the right support and opportunities for women from various minority ethnic groups.

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

As mentioned in the Education chapter, research which focused on women who have worked or are working in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), found that women from minority ethnic backgrounds face barriers and inequalities in relation to employment. In 2019, intersectional research from Equate Scotland about Women in STEM in Scotland found that women from BME backgrounds who participated in the research^[47], faced:

• discrimination and harassment (60% of total participants including women from BME backgrounds);
• not feeling confident in reporting experiences of exclusion or discrimination to their employers (51% of BME women vs 34% white women);
• not feeling that enough was being done to create inclusive workplaces or education institutions (81% of BME women vs 64% white women);
• feeling that efforts to support women in STEM were not fully inclusive of women who experienced multiple discriminations (60% BME women vs 55% white women).

In an updated publication in 2023, Equate Scotland found that 68% of the 106 women and non-binary people who responded to the survey experienced some form of harassment or discrimination. The report noted that this percentage was relatively static across different ethnic groups, as well as other demographic factors. The importance of intersectional analysis in relation to STEM was raised in this report, highlighting that this is required to “provide[-] a more accurate picture of the STEM sectors than current labour market data have the capacity to provide”. However, intersectional breakdowns between race and gender were not explicitly included throughout the findings of the Equate report. This may have been due to the small number of respondents from minority ethnic backgrounds. Currently quantitative data on women’s STEM education and employment in Scotland is not available disaggregated by sex intersecting with ethnicity.

Retail

Academic research, by Kele et al, of women from various minority ethnic backgrounds working in retail in the UK conducted in 2018 found that intersections between gender, ethnicity and religion resulted in barriers to career progression and promotion.^[48] Ethnicity and lack of cultural awareness within the workplace played a part in the participants’ understanding of their career progression and general experiences in retail. One participant shared their experience where their white-female counterpart was put forward for a managerial position over them despite perceived performance being the same. Another participant spoke about her colleague being given a promotion because they were Black, linking this to a “box-ticking” exercise for diversity. When analysing interviews from participants of this study, researchers found that there is a “customer expectation[-] about the identities and the social position of the employee” that results in discrimination against employees that do not fit this model. The researchers link to previous studies which suggest that there is an expectation that managers will be white men.

Kele et al's research notes that participants may not have been aware of gender as a contributing factor to their career progression below senior management positions as retail at these levels are female-dominated so may appear less obvious. However, “despite the feminized nature of retail… participants faced multiple career inequalities due to their intersectional positioning as minority-ethnic women”. The researchers suggested interventions aimed to promote underrepresented groups, introducing training and awareness of intersectional experiences for staff, demonstrating support as an organisation outwardly for minority ethnic workers, and supporting employees by holding customers to account for racism through enhancing schemes such as “Service with Respect” or introducing stricter no tolerance policies.

The findings for specific employment sectors reflect the findings about workplace discrimination generally mentioned previously in this Evidence Review. The 2019 Close the Gap research found that 42% of survey respondents (all minority ethnic women) reported experiencing “bullying, harassment or victimisation in the workplace because they are a BME woman”.^[49] Of these respondents, 52% said that they did not report these incidences and the top two reasons for this was that they “did not think their line manager would support them” and they “did not think it would make a difference”. Similarly, BME women in this study reported feeling as though they needed to “put on an act” to fit in, requiring “emotional labour whereby women must manipulate their actual [or perceived] feelings” to “be accepted and to cope with negative workplace culture”.

Some quantitative evidence for specific employment sectors was available, however intersectional data was often not available.

6.5. Inactivity due to caring

This sub-chapter will reference evidence that highlights inactivity due to caring responsibilities, such as looking after the home and/or family, has the potential to limit the capacity for women to participate in the labour market and causes compounding financial impacts when considering existing pay gaps.

Caring responsibilities, such as becoming a mother or looking after children, has a disproportionate financial impact on minority ethnic women. The motherhood pay penalty, where having a child/children and taking maternity breaks causes barriers to building a career, impacts a woman’s income and is the leading cause of the gender pay gap. According to the 2023 Fawcett Society report, “For minority ethnic women, this motherhood pay penalty is compounded by existing ethnicity pay gaps and the intersection of gender-based and racial inequalities at work and throughout their career”. As mentioned above, minority ethnic women experience wage disparities in comparison to white women and men across all ethnic groups and are more likely to face barriers to accessing and participating in paid work due to their traditional roles as carers and mothers, which will be discussed below.

Caring responsibilities, particularly childcare, can impact a woman’s ability to enter the workforce. Further analysis for this Evidence Review of 2023 ONS Annual Population Survey data, of all 16 to 64 years people who were economically inactive who said it was due to ‘Looking after Home and/or Family’, 81.3% were women and 18.7% were men. This data was not available intersectionally, however, qualitative research sheds some light on the experiences of minority ethnic women specifically. According to the Scottish Close the Gap research published in 2019^[50], 44% of BME women who responded to the survey said that they had childcare responsibilities, 24% cared for an older or disabled person, and 62% of these respondents said that caring roles impacted their ability to do paid work. This research also outlines barriers for BME women to access support with caring. Of the BME women with childcare caring responsibilities, 59% said that they did not use paid-for childcare. The top two reasons for this were that formal, paid-for childcare was too expensive (40%), and respondents also reported a “lack of cultural diversity, specifically the under-representation [of] BME people among childcare staff, and a lack of cultural sensitivity in service delivery” which discouraged them from using paid-for childcare. Additionally, a lack of informal childcare (e.g. family and friends nearby) meant that some women did not have support in childcare duties, which also exacerbates feelings of loneliness and can lead to discrimination in the workplace when having to leave work for childcare duties. Participants in this research expressed a feeling that caring responsibilities and a lack of accessible support for caring caused barriers to education and employment.

Even if employment can be secured, caring responsibilities can limit the number of hours a person is able to work and thus, their earnings. Although not intersectional, the Scottish Government Child Poverty in Minority Ethnic Families report (2019) highlights that minority ethnic families with children work fewer hours on average and have a lower rate of hourly pay compared to all households with children in Scotland (2015-2018 data). The Fawcett Society analysis of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) from 1992 to 2020, shows, when accounting for some variables^[51], motherhood reduces employment levels for women in the UK across most ethnic groups. However, this has the smallest impact on differences between white women when comparing women with and without children (5% difference), while the largest impact can be seen between the employment rates of women of a Pakistani/Bangladeshi heritage with and without children (17%). The Fawcett Society’s report makes a number of recommendations in relation to widening access to support with caring, flexible working, pay gap reporting and specific actions to support black and minoritised working mothers.

Summary of evidence:

• A range of quantitative data was found to understand participation and inequitable outcomes in the labour market across a few work indicators for minority ethnic women.
• Qualitative research on certain areas, such as in specific employment sectors and the impact of caring responsibilities on participation in the labour market, indicates a good understanding of barriers specific to minority ethnic women.
• Increasing the availability of quantitative data alongside qualitative research for certain issues, such as occupational segregation, would be beneficial to understand the extent of the problem for minority ethnic women specifically.

Based on this chapter, what lessons can we learn about analysis and publication of intersectional evidence?

• There is a need to consider multiple data sources as statistical differences may not always provide the full picture. Often this can be filled by qualitative evidence, where research can delve deeper into a topic area for a specific group, however this is also limited in its ability to be applied at a population level.
• Where possible, research should closely examine the intersectional experiences of disaggregated minority ethnic groups, rather than assume that all those from minority ethnic backgrounds experience the same issues in the same areas.