Muslim girls in UK surge ahead at school but held back at work

Muslim girls still face discrimination in seeking employment in the UK despite improving their education performance at school, according to the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).

In a new report published Thursday, girls of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin have overtaken white boys in obtaining higher grades in GCSE school-leaving certificates. Despite many coming from families with lower incomes, Muslim girls were said to be also rapidly catching up with
white girls, who outperform boys at school.

The EOC also found in its two-year investigation that girls at 16 from all the minority communities have higher aspirations than their white contemporaries to progress to skilled jobs requiring degrees or long periods of training.

Nearly 90 percent want to work full-time after leaving education, balancing employment with having a family, it said. But it added that their ambitions were thwarted when they enter the labor market.
They were found to hit a brick wall of discrimination, not only getting lower pay but also having fewer opportunities to reach managerial positions.

Compared with one in 17 white women, one in six young Pakistani women and one in eight young Bangladeshis were often asked at job interviews about plans for marriage and children, or the attitude of a husband or partner towards her going to work.

An EOC survey of 1,000 employers in areas with high ethnic populations found over 90 percent said there was a strong business case for employing black and Asian women, but more than 30 percent employed none and nearly 60 percent proportionately fewer.

Jenny Watson, the EOC's chairwoman, said "the good news is that the next generation of black and Asian women have a lot to contribute to their families and to our economy." "The bad news is that not enough employers are tapping into this pool of talent," Watson said.

"It's not only employers who miss out. We all do when young women's ambitions are dashed and we fail to build cohesive communities," she said.