General Article How racist is Britain today? What the evidence tells us

Topic Selected: Racism Book Volume: 376

Anthony Heath, University of Oxford and Lindsay Richards, University of Oxford

When seeking to get a picture of the inequality and social injustice faced by black and minority ethnic groups in the UK, a good place to start is the government’s own figures).

It’s starkly evident that major ethnic and racial inequalities persist in employment, housing and the justice system. Black and Muslim minorities have twice the unemployment rate of their white British peers and are twice as likely to live in overcrowded housing. They are also much more likely to be stopped and searched by the police. We could also add to the list the alarming ethnic differences in deaths from COVID-19.

The government’s pioneering ethnicity facts and figures website brings together in a single accessible format the hard evidence on ethnic disparities collected by government departments. It is a world-first, established in 2016 by former prime minister Theresa May, who pledged to tackle “burning injustices”.

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