Religion and economic activity in the South Asian population

Anthropological and sociological literature points to the importance of religion as a basis for understanding the diverse nature of Britain's South Asian population. Using a rare quantitative source, the 1994 National Survey of Ethnic Minorities, and against a backdrop of relative neglect by quantitative social scientists, this article considers the religious dimension to observed differences in economic activity among South Asians. The analysis reports substantial differences between religious sub-groups (by age and sex) across a range of key measures, including: differences in the proportion who are economically active; differences in the proportion of the economically active who successfully gain employment; among the employed, differences in the type of jobs held and in reported income. The analysis suggests a more complex…