New Migrants in the UK: Employment Patterns and Occupational Attainment

The share of Old and New Commonwealth migrants in Britain greatly diminished between 1971 and 2002. The decline of former colonial Commonwealth migrants occurred alongside the rise of Central, Eastern European and Middle Eastern migrants. This paper focuses on the chances of social mobility of the previously little-studied new migrant groups and outlines the differences in employment patterns between them and UK-born Whites and old migrants. It establishes that huge differentials exist between new immigrant groups in their labour-market participation, employment rates and occupational attainment. The disadvantage of EU10, Eastern European, Turkish and Middle Eastern migrants in terms of their probabilities of being active, employed and accessing intermediate positions cannot be explained by a lack of human capital, and their situation is not likely to improve with time. For migrant women, inactivity rather than unemployment seems the greatest concern.