Significant wage disparities found between ethnic minorities and white counterparts

Focused multiracial corporate business team people brainstorm on marketing plan financial report gather at office table meeting, diverse serious colleagues group discuss paperwork engaged in teamwork Significant differences exist in the earnings between white and ethnic minority workers who are colleagues in the same workplace, according to a new study co-led by UCL, Bayes Business School and the University of Cyprus. Published in the British Journal of Industrial Relations , the research explores the scale of ethnic wage gaps among full-time employees, after accounting for the segregation of white and ethnic minority employees into different types of workplaces. The report is the first-of-its-kind in Great Britain to show that most of the aggregate wage gap exists within the workplace between white and ethnic minority co-workers as opposed to arising across high and low wage firms. The research reveals that, on average, male employees from ethnic minority backgrounds earn around 11% less than their observationally equivalent white male co-workers, while for female employees, the difference was an average of around 7%. Researchers also found that male and female employees from ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely than white employees to feel over-skilled in their role - and are less satisfied than white employees with their earnings. The findings indicate that employers should put more emphasis on ensuring fairness in pay setting to reduce pay inequality, according to the researchers.