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

9. Community and Power

This chapter examines the extent to which minority ethnic women are represented and able to meaningfully participate in decision-making positions within their neighbourhood and political and social spheres. This chapter draws on limited statistical evidence. Data limitations are partly due to lack of representation resulting in low sample sizes.

9.1. Neighbourhood

Understanding people’s interactions within their neighbourhood, provides an indication of involvement within communities and access to support networks. This sub-chapter focuses primarily on SHS data which asks a series of questions about how respondents feel about living in their neighbourhoods. The data suggests that some results may be influenced by ethnicity, rather than there being a particularly strong intersectional impact of gender with ethnicity.

Intersectional analysis of the SHS 2022 data undertaken for this report showed that minority ethnic^[64] women tended to be less connected to people in their neighbourhood compared to white Scottish/British women and Scottish/British men. When respondents were asked if they could rely on someone in their neighbourhood to help them if they were alone and needed help, 73% of minority ethnic women agreed compared to 90% of white Scottish/British women and 87% of white Scottish/British men. There was no significant difference between minority ethnic women and minority ethnic men (73% and 70% respectively), suggesting it may not be an experience impacted significantly by someone’s intersectional characteristics, but instead possibly by ethnicity alone. Similarly, when respondents were asked if they could turn to friends or relatives in their neighbourhood for advice or support, 67% of minority ethnic women agreed while 84% of white Scottish/British women agreed and 81% of white Scottish/British men agreed. There was again no difference between minority ethnic women and minority ethnic men (67% for both).

It is also beneficial to understand how people feel about the benefits of their neighbourhood. Minority ethnic women were less likely to rate their neighbourhood as a very good place to live in comparison to white Scottish/British women and Scottish/British men (50% compared to 58% and 59%). There was no significant difference when comparing the proportion of minority ethnic women and men that rated their neighbourhood as a very good place to live (50% and 46%). Again these statistics suggest that this issue may not be intersectional, as both minority ethnic women and men are less likely to feel connected to their neighbourhood when compared with white Scottish/British women and Scottish/British men. These findings align with the analysis of a Scottish Government report on social capital and community wellbeing in Scotland. The report highlighted that minority ethnic people had a lower sense of belonging than the national average, while white Scottish people had the highest sense of belonging in Scotland.

When minority ethnic women and white Scottish/British women were asked if they agree that there are places to meet up and socialise in their neighbourhood, survey responses did not show any statistically significant differences in experiences. Roughly half of both minority ethnic women and white Scottish/British women agreed or strongly agreed with the above statement (53% and 56% respectively). On the other hand, there was a difference between minority ethnic women and white Scottish/British men (53% compared to 59%). There was again no statistically significant difference between minority ethnic women and men (53% and 56% respectively). The survey does not provide further information about what exactly makes them think their neighbourhood is a good place to live, is suitable for facilitating socialising, or whether respondents actually make use of these areas to meet others.

Finally, some differences were found when considering how respondents to the SHS think they would support their neighbours during an emergency. The majority of respondents regardless of gender or ethnicity agreed that in an emergency, such as a flood, they would offer to help people in their neighbourhood who might not be able to cope well, however there was a small statistically significant difference comparing responses of minority ethnic women and white Scottish/British women (88% and 92% respectively). There were no statistically significant differences found when comparing minority ethnic women and minority ethnic men. As above, the survey results do not provide any additional context to these statistics about why there might be a difference between groups, nor whether other factors, such as migrant or refugee status and language barriers, impacted their responses.

9.2. Political Power

Measures of political power examine the representation of persons across national and local political institutions in Scotland which allows us to assess whether there is a diverse range of influences on key decisions impacting the lives of everyone in the community. For this sub-chapter, statistics from Scottish Parliament were explored to understand representation across population groups. At the time of writing this report, there were no published statistics that capture the demographics of minority ethnic women in other political positions, such as Council leaders and Ministers.

After the most recent Scottish Parliament Elections on 6 May 2021, 58 out of 129 Members of Parliament (MSPs) were female, of which two were from minority ethnic backgrounds. This was an improvement from 12 May 2020, when no minority ethnic women were in Scottish Parliament. In comparison, 71 out of 129 MSPs on 6 May 2021 were male, of which four were from ethnic minority backgrounds. There is an underrepresentation of individuals from minority ethnic groups, especially for minority ethnic women in positions of political power in Scotland^[65]. Given this underrepresentation, the elected MSPs from minority ethnic backgrounds are also unlikely to represent every minority ethnic group in Scotland.

9.3. Social Power

Social power refers to one’s ability to influence decision making in important and influential spheres in Scottish life, including the judiciary, media and sport^[66]. Social power can influence social debates, culture, and community initiatives. Looking into this evidence enables an insight into whether minority ethnic women are able to participate meaningfully in Scotland’s social sphere, meaning that their unique experiences and perspectives are appreciated and able to shape their social environments.

This Evidence Review was able to identify some evidence relating to social power in Scottish Government data. Similar to the findings in the political power sub-chapter, in areas of larger social influence, representation of minority ethnic women is still low. According to the Ethical Standards Commissioner, when reporting data from December 2022, 51.26% of board members of public bodies in Scotland were female, yet only 4.90% from black and minority ethnic groups. This is a slight improvement to the figures in the 2020 NACWG Race Equality report which showed that in 2018, 3% of board members were of a non-white ethnicity and 49% were female.

In contrast to poor representation, intersectional analysis of SHS 2022 results conducted for this report did not show any statistically significant differences across sex and ethnicity when respondents were asked if they agreed they could influence decisions affecting their local area. Across all adults surveyed only 18% agreed that they could influence decisions. The responses did not vary much when broken down by sex and ethnicity, with 18% of minority ethnic⁵⁷ women, 19% of minority ethnic men, 17% of white Scottish/British women, and 19% of white Scottish/British men agreeing with the statement. It would be beneficial to explore additional research which examines why the proportions of people feeling like they could influence decisions were low and if there are any notable differences among disaggregated minority ethnic groups.

Summary of evidence:

• Statistical data on experience in neighbourhoods suggest that there are limited differences between minority ethnic women and comparative groups, and that differences which were found may be based on ethnicity rather than sex and gender.
• Statistical data does show that minority ethnic women are underrepresented in political and social positions of power.
• No qualitative evidence was found that aids further understanding of experiences in neighbourhoods and perceived barriers to positions of power across Scotland for minority ethnic women.

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

• It is important to consider multiple comparison groups with intersectional data to assess whether issues are intersectional or are more likely to be based on one equality characteristic alone.
• Unless there are very detailed quantitative surveys results available, we often do not learn much about the reasons behind statistically reported outcomes and experiences. Qualitative research and evidence may begin to fill this gap.