Numbers game: Success and ethnicity

The report, Migration and Social Mobility: the Life Chances of Britain's Ethnic Minorities, analysed Longitudinal Study data from the Office for National Statistics on 140,000 young people born from the 1960s to the 1980s. Researchers at the University of Essex found that family background and class played a large factor in the progress of young people in 2001. Those from Caribbean, African, Indian and Chinese communities with working-class parents found professional employment faster than their White counterparts, and were doing better than their parents' generation. The study also found religious differences in mobility, with second-generation Hindus and Jews more likely to be upwardly mobile than young Christians, but Sikhs, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis left behind.