In our Economic Inclusion Baseline Report we showed several demographic factors are linked to higher than average levels of worklessness. We refer to these as ‘risk factors.’
In this research, we looked in more depth at the impact of some of these risk factors—alone and in combination with each other—on the probability of worklessness in the West Midlands and England. This analysis allowed us, for the first time, to look at the effects of these risk factors in isolation.
The risk factors examined are:
- Being a young person (aged 16–24)
- Being an older person (aged 55 to retirement)
- Being from a black, Indian or Pakistani/Bangladeshi ethnic group
- Having a long-term health problem or disability
- Being a lone parent
- Having no qualifications
We published the reports on 7 June 2010:
Key findings
- People with none of these risk factors have a very low chance of being out of work — only 6% for men and 14% for women. These people are no more likely to be workless in the West Midlands than the rest of England.
- Having any single risk factor raises the probability of being out of work substantially to an average of 18% for men and 34% for women. The highest chance of worklessness is seen amongst Pakistani/Bangladeshi women who (with no other risk factors) have a 70% probability of being workless. Having a long-term health problem/disability or being aged below 25 also raises the probability of being workless substantially, to over 30% for both men and women.
- Amongst people with two risk factors, the chance of being workless increases still further. In most cases, people who have two risk factors are more likely to be workless than in work.
- Amongst people with one or more risk factors, in general the chance of being workless is higher in the West Midlands metropolitan area, and higher still in Birmingham, than elsewhere in the West Midlands and in the rest of England.
We explain the findings in this slidecast:
Watch slidecast (with audio) | Download slides (ppt, 2.98mb)
Charts and posters
We've also produced some charts and posters which show some examples of how the probability of worklessness increases for different risk factors and combinations of factors:
Dataset
We've shared a dataset showing:
- Probability of worklessness for females and males in the West Midlands and rest of England.
- Estimated number of males and females of working age in the West Midlands experiencing the risk factors.
Get the data: XLS | CSV | Google Spreadsheets
Research seminar 6 July 2010
Helena Duignan and Rosie Day from the Observatory presented the research at a seminar. John Lee, Director of the Economic Inclusion Panel, showed how knowledge from the economic inclusion research is being used to inform policy development nationally and locally.