Highlights of equality and diversity news from last week – statistics from Census 2011 dominated news with a lot of discussion on immigration, race and integration, and a post we published on David Cameron’s announcement about equality impact assessments proved quite popular.
The 2011 Census shows that the number of ‘foreign-born’ residents in England and Wales has risen by nearly three million since 2001 to 7.5 million. In London, White British are now a minority, making up only 45% of the population (down from 58% in 2001). The Office for National Statistics said the findings showed a “diverse” and “changing” picture.
While the numbers are important, a very good article by Suzanne Moore in the Guardian argues, “There’s more to diversity than statistics.” As she rightly points out, “…the usual claptrap about ‘diversity’ being something to celebrate is meaningless when it is not publicly acknowledged. ‘Diversity’ cannot be acknowledged when we don’t have one major institution in the land that reflects the makeup of our country.”
Interestingly, it was only last week that a parliamentary report revealed that ethnic minority women face discrimination in recruitment. An article in the Guardian discusses this report with reference to Muslim women in the country, “… it is the ‘triple paralysis’ of being a woman, migrant, or perceived as such, and Muslim.” South Asian Muslim women have the highest rate of unemployment in terms of both religion and ethnicity in the UK.
On the back of that, David Cameron’s announcement that the government is “calling time on equality impact assessments” doesn’t seem to have gone down too well. We asked equality and diversity experts to give us their reactions. They have been put together in a blog post we published last week – ‘Can we leave equality in the hands of “smart people in Whitehall”?’
This is the last equality and diversity news for this year – we’ll be back in the New Year with more news and posts to keep you engaged. Thank you for your continued interest in the blog – hope you have a lovely break!
