Mr Samir Sweida-Metwally

Samir is a quantitative social scientist and Assistant Teacher at the University of Bristol. His doctoral research - which focuses on the experience of Muslims - examines racism, discrimination and ethnoreligious penalties in the British labour market. His research is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. Samir also holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics from Brunel University, and an MSc in Political Theory from the LSE. He also holds an MSc in Comparative Social Policy from the University of Oxford, where he studied on a full scholarship from the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

Ethnic Inequalities and the Muslim Penalty: Labour Market Dynamics of Ethno-religious Groups in Britain

While research shows that Muslims experience the greatest faith penalty in the British labour market relative to any other religious group, most investigations have focused on ‘Asian Muslims’. In light of recent demographic changes, such examinations offer an incomplete analysis. This vacuum needs filling for ethnic-penalty research to remain relevant. Using Understanding Society data, this paper fills the gap by investigating the Muslim penalty taking into account the full ethnic heterogeneity of the group. By doing so, this paper makes a significant empirical contribution to the study of ethnic labour market penalties by exposing new intra- and inter-religious-group employment dynamics.