How Immigration Has Impoverished Britain: 75% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Children “Live in Poverty”
Claims that immigration is economically beneficial for Britain have been destroyed by news that three-quarters of Pakistani and Bangladeshi children in the UK are being brought up in families that are living on poverty-level income.
The report, issued by Millennium Cohort Study, which is tracking children born between 2000 and 2002, has found that 73 per cent of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi seven-year olds were in families estimated to be living on less than 60 per cent of the average national household income.Just over half of the black children (51 percent) in the Millennium cohort were in such low-income families, compared with one in four white (26 percent) and Indian (25percent) children, said an official press release.
“Predictably, low income was strongly linked to joblessness among parents, say researchers at the Institute of Education, University of London, who collected information from almost 14,000 families in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2008/9.”
According to the report, among fathers, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis had the highest unemployment rate (15 percent) – well above the UK average of 6 per cent. Unemployment among black fathers was also high (11 percent) but Indians were less likely to be unemployed (4 percent) than whites (5.5 percent).
Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of white and Indian mothers had jobs, compared with half (52 percent) of black mothers and only 17 per cent of Pakistani and Bangladeshi mothers.
A much higher proportion of children in lone-parent families (63 percent) were living below the study’s poverty line than those with married (16percent) or cohabiting (30 percent) parents.
“The incidence of income poverty for the Millennium cohort families has not changed appreciably over the first seven years of the children’s lives,” says Professor Heather Joshi, the study’s director.
“Despite government efforts to eradicate child poverty almost three in 10 children are still in poor families at age 7. It’s particularly disappointing that around one in five seven-year-olds is in severe poverty – on incomes below half the national average.”
The findings appear in a report published today by the Institute of Education’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies: Millennium Cohort Study, Fourth Survey: A User's Guide to Initial Findings. Copies of the report can be downloaded here.
