Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
This chapter outlines the context within which the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS) was developed and conducted. It discusses how this context shaped the focus of EVENS on racial justice and led to important innovations in its design and implementation, and the consequences of these innovations. It goes on to summarise the key findings reported in this volume, including those in relation to experiences of: racism and racial discrimination; engagement in political and civic life; labour market, socioeconomic and housing inequalities; health; and ethnic and national identity. It concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the findings from EVENS, highlighting the central role of racism in shaping inequalities, and the need for fundamental reform of institutions to address the drivers of ethnic inequalities.
This chapter looks at the ways in which ethnic identity is expressed using data produced by the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS). It first examines how people describe their ethnicity in their own words and describes the types of identities that are not currently captured in standardised ethnicity classifications. It also examines the prevalence of non-standardised ways of describing ethnicity across standardised ethnic groupings and reflects on the potential reasons for the existing differences. It further looks at the importance of ethnic and religious identities for people across ethnic and religious backgrounds, and provides an overview of how often people engage in practices relating to their ethnicity and/or religion, such as the food they eat, clothes they wear and/or participating in more general ethnic specific activities. Finally, the chapter also considers how much people from different ethnic groups feel that they belong to British, English, Scottish and Welsh societies.
This chapter uses data from the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS) to document the health and wellbeing of people from different ethnic groups in the UK. We focus on a range of physical and mental health outcomes, as well as indicators of wellbeing and access to services. We explore physical health by observing rates of multimorbidity, whereas mental health is examined using standardised measures of depression and anxiety. Relatedly, differences across ethnic groups in levels of loneliness are explored, including whether individuals’ levels of loneliness increased during the pandemic. We also analyse ethnic differences in experiencing COVID-19 infection and bereavement during the pandemic. Finally, we present figures on ethnic inequalities in access to health services during the pandemic. The resulting picture is that people from ethnic minority groups in the UK face poorer physical health outcomes than the White British group, including greater risk of COVID-19 infection and COVID-related bereavement. However, people from ethnic minority groups generally fared better than those in the White British group in relation to mental health.
Using the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS), this chapter demonstrates how ethnic minority groups in Britain are subject to material deprivation in residential experience, yet succeed in developing strong local attachment and enriching this during times of crisis. It presents evidence on ethnic inequalities in housing type, overcrowding, multigenerational living, access to greenspace and residential mobility, with attention to variation within Britain and ethnic groups that are absent from other studies (such as Roma and Gypsy Traveller). It finds, for example, that spatial pressure in households is more prevalent among all ethnic minority groups compared to White British people. This is a notable concern for three-generation households, which are particularly common in the Pakistani and Roma ethnic groups. Despite housing deprivation, analyses of local belonging point to community mechanisms and networks of solidarity being mobilised during the COVID-19 pandemic in diverse neighbourhoods.
This chapter outlines how the book provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date evidence on ethnic inequalities in Britain. Situating the book in a concern for racial justice and a framing that sees racism as a systemic driver of inequalities, the chapter reviews concepts of ethnicity, race and racism; the deficiencies of ethnicity data; and the dilemmas of ethnic categorisation before making the case for the value of the new and innovative Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS). It orients readers to the style and structure of the book – and the options to read cover to cover or to ‘dip in’ ‒ and to expect expert discipline-oriented empirical chapters within a framing that speaks across disciplines to vital questions of racism and ethnic inequality.
This chapter outlines how the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS) was made; how the pioneering non-probability approach was implemented by the EVENS team and Ipsos. It documents the EVENS methods of making the invitation to participate open to all; questionnaire design and recruitment, including the importance of partnering with key race equality voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations; responsive adaptation to fieldwork methods (particularly procedures for data collection, data monitoring and quality assurance); and implementation of comprehensive post-fieldwork data adjustments to ensure a complete, robust dataset. Details of the EVENS sample are provided, demonstrating how data generated with the innovative EVENS methods can be used as representative of ethnic minority people in Britain. As a successful example of a non-traditional, non-probability approach to social surveys, EVENS presents a challenge to data producers and data users to better represent ethnic minority populations.
This chapter examines ethnic differences in levels of political and civic engagement, using data produced by the Evidence for National Equality Survey (EVENS). It begins with the following question: how much trust do people have in different levels of government in relation to pandemic management? In particular, it looks at interethnic differences in the levels of trust in the UK Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and local mayors. It then considers the levels of political interest across ethnic groups. Our findings suggest that people from most ethnic minority backgrounds tend to express more political trust and more political interest than people from a White British background. The chapter also compares patterns of political party preferences across ethnic groups and across England, Scotland and Wales. Finally, it gives an overview of the very strong level of support towards the Black Lives Matter movement, although the extent of this support varied across ethnic groups.
ePUB and ePDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
This book examines how ethnicity shaped experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Britain.
Drawing from the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS), the book compares the experiences of ethnic and religious minority groups and White British people in work and finances, housing and communities, health and wellbeing, policing and politics, racism and discrimination in the UK. Using unrivalled data in terms of population and topic coverage and complete with bespoke graphics, contributors present new evidence of ethnic inequalities and racism, opening them up to debate as crucial social concerns.
Written by leading international experts in the field, this is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary ethnic inequalities and racism, from academics and policy makers to voluntary and community sector organisations.
This chapter examines the experiences of racism and discrimination reported by different ethnic groups in the UK, using data produced by the Evidence for National Equality Survey (EVENS). Comparisons are drawn between the racism and discrimination reported as having occurred prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and those reported after the start of the pandemic. The chapter focuses on racist assault (verbal, physical and damage to property) and racial discrimination occurring in institutional and social settings, comparing the experiences of different ethnic groups, which forms of racism and discrimination are most prevalent, how experiences differ by gender and what the impact of the pandemic has been. In addition, the analysis examines the extent to which ethnic minority people are concerned about possibly experiencing racism and discrimination. Finally it examines respondents’ experiences of policing during the pandemic.
This chapter uses data produced by the Evidence for National Equality Survey (EVENS) to focus on two inter-related domains of ethnic inequalities in socioeconomic circumstances: general socioeconomic status and socioeconomic status under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. It describes ethnic inequalities in a range of socioeconomic measures: education, occupation, tenure and financial situation before the COVID-19 outbreak. It then focuses on how people’s financial situations have changed during the course of the pandemic, whether people have been receiving income-related benefits, whether they have experienced income change and to what extent they worry about their finances. The findings demonstrate that even though many ethnic groups show an advantage in terms of educational level, they still experience much more hardship compared to the White British population. Moreover, existing financial difficulties experienced by ethnic minorities have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic – almost all ethnic groups report more financial struggle compared to the pre-pandemic rates. Altogether, the findings point to persistent ethnic inequalities in experiencing hardship.
