COVID-19 and Ethnic Inequalities in England

Abstract

Ethnic minorities have been particularly hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, in terms of both mortality risks and economic impacts. This has been widely recognised in the UK and elsewhere, and there has been extensive analysis of mortality risks and a burgeoning number of reports reflecting on the wider inequalities associated with them. Yet, despite occupation being flagged as a key differentiator in the experience of ethnic minority groups, there has been little systematic investigation of how far the occupations of both immigrants and British-born ethnic minorities are linked to the negative consequences of the pandemic. In addition, most analysis has focused on the consequences of lockdowns and mortality risks for individuals, rather than considering the implications for the wider household and family. In this paper, I argue that, while not the only factors shaping vulnerability to COVID-19, we can shed further light on ethnic inequalities in the experience of COVID-19 if we pay greater attention to employment patterns and occupational distributions across ethnic groups and within families. It is also relevant to ascertain the extent to which these patterns do or do not dissipate across generations to identify enduring cleavages within the population and the longer, as well as the shorter, term implications of the pandemic for ethnic inequalities.