Muslim Women in the UK
- Equality should be a lived reality for all. Yet Muslim women face a double discrimination on the basis of their gender and their faith.
- At GCSE level, the performance of Muslim girls as a group is better than the national average. But once they leave education, Muslim women are almost four time as likely to be unemployed as Christian women. 69% of Muslim women of working age are economically inactive.
- In employment, Pakistani women earn 28% less than White men, compared to 17% less for White women. The Department for Work and Pensions has estimated that between a quarter and a half of the ethnic minority employment gap is caused by employer discrimination.
- According to one poll, 57% of Muslim women say that they want to work. However, 64% say they need more practical support from the government in terms of access to childcare and language lessons to do so.
- Muslim women face the highest levels of inequality in health and housing in the UK. They report the highest rate of ill health among all faith and gender groups – 16%, compared to 8% of Christian women. A third of Muslim families live in overcrowded accommodation.
- The first three Muslim women MPs were elected at the 2010 general election.
Sources: National Equality Panel, An anatomy of economic inequality in the UK; Offices for National Statistics; Equality and Human Rights Commission, How fair is Britain? The First Triennial Review; Office for National Statistics
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