Labour Force Survey examines religious bias

The Government Statistics and Research Agency has today published a new report on the relative position of Protestants and Catholics in the Northern Ireland labour market.

Based on information obtained from the 2001-2002 Labour Force Survey (LFS), the report presents a range of figures on the economic activity, employment, unemployment profiles of the two communities.

Among the main findings of the report were that Protestants are more likely to be economically active. Among those of working age, 80% of Protestant men were economically active compared with 76% of Catholic males. Among women of working age, 68% of Protestants and 58% of Catholics were economically active.

According to the statistical analysis, Catholics made up 43% of the economically active population and 42% of those in employment. Protestants made up 57% of the economically active and 58% of those in employment.

The ‘employment gap’ for Catholics - the difference between a group’s representation in the labour market and its representation among those in employment - was one percentage point with 42% of those in employment compared with 43% in the labour market. For Catholic males the employment gap was 1.4 percentage points and for females 0.6 of a percentage point.

However, among the unemployed, the religious composition was 60% Catholic and 40% Protestant. The unemployment rate for Catholics (8.3%) was substantially higher than that for Protestants (4.3%). The overall ‘unemployment differential’, expressed as the ratio of the unemployment rate of Catholics compared with Protestants, was 1.9.

The figures revealed that the unemployment rates for both communities had fallen since 1993. The Protestant rate fell from 9.4% in 1993 to 4.3% in 2001, while the corresponding Catholic rate fell from 18.1% to 8.3%, thus narrowing the absolute difference between the unemployment rates of the two communities from 8.7 to 4.0 percentage points.

The report found no major differences between the unemployed of the two communities in terms of duration of unemployment or main method of seeking work.

Among male employees, Catholic representation was highest in smaller sized workplaces with 1-10 employees (48%), and lowest in large workplaces employing 50 or more persons (35%).

Among all in employment, a higher proportion of Catholic men were self-employed (20%) than was the case with Protestant males (16%).

Similar proportions of both communities among the economically active had no formal qualifications.

(SP)