Muslims’ high unemployment rate ‘not due to cultural and religious practices’

theguardian.com:

Poor outcomes for Muslims in the British labour market cannot be explained by sociocultural attitudes, such as commitment to traditionalism, a study has found.

The research, published in the peer-reviewed Ethnic and Racial Studies journal, confirmed the existence of a “Muslim penalty” in the employment market but rejected previous suggestions that it was due to cultural and religious practices.

Both Muslim men and Muslim women were found to have significantly greater probability of unemployment than their respective white British Christian counterparts after adjustments were made for factors such as age, where they live, education and whether they have children. The author then adjusted for factors such as religiosity, gender attitudes, and civic participation but found that they had only a minor effect on the “Muslim penalty”.

Samir Sweida-Metwally,doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, who carried out the research, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, said: “The findings offer evidence against the view that Muslims’ poor employment outcomes in Britain are due to their so-called ‘sociocultural attitudes’.

“In challenging this narrative, which problematises Muslims and their faith, the study lends support to the overwhelming evidence from field experiments that shows anti-Muslim discrimination towards Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim to be a significant barrier to them accessing work.”

His paper uses 10 years of data from the UK Household Longitudinal study, an annual survey of about 100,000 people from 40,000 households that collects information, primarily through face-to-face interviews on people’s socio-economic situation.

Participants have been asked questions including on the strength