阿迪达斯控油劲爽:Why do British youth have time to riot?

Why do British youth have time to riot?

frances woolley

Globe and Mail Update

Posted on Friday, August 12, 2011 1:05PM EDT

There’s a sober economic reality underlying the recent British riots: widespread joblessness. Six hundred thousand British youth under the age of 25 have never had a day’s work, and 17 per cent of British youth are not in school, work or training.

Why? Government policy? A stagnant economy? Binge drinking? Or perhaps something has changed in the British labour market?

As recently as 1993, Britain lost more people through emigration than it gained via immigration.

But the creation of the European Union, and especially the 2004 enlargement to include Poland, Hungary and other former communist countries, gave free rights of movement to millions of workers. Hundreds of thousands of people took advantage of those opportunities, and moved in search of better jobs, many coming to Britain.

The resulting rise in immigration is, according to one commentator, “one of the most significant demographic developments experienced by the United Kingdom over the past 15 years.”

There are 62 million people in Britain. The number of new immigrants – slightly less than 600,000 per year – amounts to less than 1 per cent of the total population. Could such a small number make a difference?

Over all, it doesn’t. But in a 2008 working paper, Stephen Nickell and Jumana Saleheen argue that immigration matters in some labour markets.

Immigrant workers are concentrated in certain professions – high-skill jobs such as doctor or university professor, low-skill jobs such as housecleaner or dishwasher. Mr. Nickell and Ms. Saleheen calculated the proportion of workers in an occupation who are immigrants, in a particular area, at a point in time – for example, the proportion of child care workers in London in 2003 who were born outside the country.

Looking at 25 occupations in 11 regions of Britain over a 15-year period, they concluded that immigration depressed wages in lower-skill occupations. In the semi/unskilled services sector, for example, a 10-percentage-point rise in the proportion of immigrants was associated with a 5-per-cent reduction in pay.

A more recent analysis by Jonathan Wadsworth reaches the same conclusion – immigration has had a small, negative effect on earnings and employment in low-skill jobs.

Since Britain is part of the European Union, it is committed to allowing free movement of workers. The question is how any negative effects of immigration can be mitigated.

Education is one answer. More than three-quarters of poor, white British children leave high school at age 16 without a decent qualification – the “GCSEs” necessary to go on to further study – although poor children from other ethnic groups generally do somewhat better. If you were looking for a nanny, would you rather hire a Lithuanian with a college degree, or a young Briton with no formal qualifications?

Racism is another part of the story. If restaurant owners believe tourists would rather have their tea served by someone with a peaches-and-cream complexion, they might be reluctant to hire brown-skinned Britons. Even in Canada, there is evidence that some employers prefer candidates with English-sounding names.

But maybe economics has nothing to do with the riots at all.

Perhaps people just enjoy partying on long summer evenings.