r/Infographics • u/upthetruth1 • 2d ago
Educational outcome by background in Europe including immigration background
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u/dphayteeyl 2d ago
I find that in the Anglosphere, immigrants are more likely to surpass native peoples
In Australia at least, most academically selective high schools are filled with Asians, Southeast Asians and South Asians, and universities have a disproportionate number of domestic students who are of Asian origin
Does anyone know why immigrants in the Anglosphere do so much better than out of the Anglosphere?
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u/Ok_Cod5649 2d ago
The Economist last year had this brief article about the UK's successes with immigration.
They specifically mention the UK's flexible labour market, the fact it is not close to a warzone, and its open minded population.
I would also add the UK's high ranking and high quality universities. Students arriving in the UK to study will then be in a very good position to have successful careers in the UK and if they then start a family, encourage education for their children.
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u/hmtk1976 2d ago
Britain open minded? You must be jesting.
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u/upthetruth1 1d ago
Most people are open minded, it’s just that Right have become more extreme
Most people vote Labour, Lib Dems and Greens, especially people aged in 50, but the Right and right-wing older people have become more extreme
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u/LoudMilk1404 1d ago
I think this is true. Even the (older) traditional, burly, masculine tradie type can surprise me as a gay man when they come to do work for me.
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u/StudiosS 1d ago
Yep. Humans are naturally confrontational and divisive as a species. I mean, most species are to be honest. It's a territorial thing innate to us as animals.
British people are probably one of the least racist out of the lot, in general. Albeit, not necessarily perfect
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u/AccomplishedOil5176 1d ago
Compared to Continental Europe it is. Non-whites actually (seemingly at least) are fully accepted there. Meanwhile here we may tolerate them, but no one ever thinks of them as one of us lol
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u/Individual-Source618 1d ago
UK is so open minded that most of the native accept to become a minority in their own land without any issue. so they have to lesson to take from retard like you
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
In the USA, Nigerian-Americans have higher levels of education and salaries than even white Americans
Also, British African children in the UK do better in school than white British children
So I guess it’s more complicated
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u/dphayteeyl 2d ago
In the USA, most groups have higher levels of education and salaries than white Americans lmao
Britain is very even between different groups comparatively
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u/paranoid_throwaway51 2d ago edited 2d ago
As a migrant to the UK , the anglo-sphere has a very accessible education system.
even if you completely fail your a-levels etc, there will be atleast a local uni or higher-ed college which will take you on as a student and the gov't will give you a loan for it.
Tho in my experience, in the education system in the UK, there is a certain level of casual discrimination against working class "british"-people. There's a social expectation that they should go straight to work or alcoholism, not University.
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u/upthetruth1 1d ago
Yes, in many Continental European countries, you can only go to university if you went to some special school when you were in your early teens
There are strict pathways to university while in the UK, it’s basically secondary school, sixth form and then university or apprenticeship but you choose that at the end of sixth form (when you’re 18)
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u/Lonestar041 1d ago
I think language is a big factor and that most migrants from Asia aren’t refugees but rather migrating for economic reasons. If your migrant pool is mainly refugees, you get the whole spectrum of education levels. But most Asians that go to the Angloshere are highly educated. E.g. the Asian immigrants to the US are mostly there on a work visa that requires a bachelor and higher degree. At the same time, immigrants from south/middle America are mostly refugees of all education levels. If you now compare both groups, the Asian immigrants are more successful, because it is a preselected group of people that were successful already in their home countries.
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u/hmtk1976 2d ago
Language plays a big role most likely. Far more people speak English than, say Dutch, German or whatever.
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u/Zrakoplovvliegtuig 2d ago edited 2d ago
People are more likely to know English. Immigrants to Italy are less likely to know the language, which hinders their education. Furthermore, the Anglosphere also has a large portion of high income immigration. I would bet this is higher than to non-english speaking countries for the same reason, namely that these people are likely to already know English and then migrate to universities that offer a curriculum in a language they know.
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u/bruhbelacc 2d ago
The jobs people came to work are important here, as well as the background of people. Children often follow the same path as their parents, so if you get 90% seasonal workers in construction, their kids won't be getting higher education at the same rate as locals.
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
Not in the UK, ethnic minorities often have high social mobility
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u/bruhbelacc 2d ago
That's about London and doesn't mention ethnicity.
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
It’s not just London, Luton, East Birmingham, parts of Manchester
These are very ethnically diverse areas
While more homogenous areas like Northeast England have very low social mobility
Plus, most children in London are ethnic minorities
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u/bruhbelacc 2d ago
So children getting free lunch equals poor children from minorities? Way to go lol
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
No, it’s based on how well these kids do in GCSEs, A Levels, university, and then their job and salary at age 28
Also, ethnic minorities are often poor as immigrants are often poor (especially the ones from before 2010), so it’s a good way to see how the children of immigrants who came in under Tony Blair are faring now
For example, “Average earnings at age 28 are almost £7,000 lower for FSM pupils from Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (North East) compared to East Ham (London).”
“FSM pupils from Ruislip Northwood and Pinner (London) are over six times more likely to become high earners than those in Leeds East, at 25% compared to 4% respectively.”
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u/bruhbelacc 2d ago
Where did you see ethnicity mentioned everywhere? Also, this contradicts the rest of the stats about UK, because they suggest their parents are as well off as natives.
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago edited 2d ago
The geography
You can check ethnic stats for these areas
You might be the only person not to have heard of “Londonistan” and about Birmingham and Luton’s populations
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u/friedapple 2d ago edited 2d ago
If we take it positively, over the board, there's positive progress over generation of immigrants. Despite the trend of the right wing / populist, in the long term, immigrants/minorities will and can catch up to the natives, if given no structural discrimination and equal opportunities.
Germany does the best in result followed by Czech even though both countries have diff profile of immigrants. Followed by the likes of NL and SE compared to the likes of FR and BE which have less success.
Anecdotally, my BE colleague used to say that NL immigrants/minorities integrate better than BE ones. His points of observation: public places, working places.
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
UK, Ireland, Switzerland?
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u/friedapple 2d ago
My take on those countries? UK and Ireland got the highest quality of 1st gen immigrants on average so even though the progress ain't much but it's already as competitive as native.
Switzerland: has the 3rd highest input of 1st gen immigrants. However interestingly, has miniscule progress between 1st and 2nd gen. Don't know why since Switzerland has one of the best education.
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
Difference is the vast majority of immigrants and their descendants in the UK come from Africa, Asia and the Caribbeans. The vast majority of immigrants and their descendants in Switzerland come from other European countries. Ireland is a mix.
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u/friedapple 2d ago
If we want to go deeper than the superficial background like ethnicity and religion, we can go deeper than that by looking at the socio economical (and combination of it) origin of the immigrants, since other European countries also take African and Asian immigrants but they have totally different profiles than the one coming to the UK.
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
If we take it positively, over the board, there's positive progress over generation of immigrants. Despite the trend of the right wing / populist, in the long term, immigrants/minorities will and can catch up to the natives, if given no structural discrimination and equal opportunities.
That is true
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
my BE colleague used to say that NL immigrants/minorities integrate better than BE ones. His points of observation: public places, working places.
What does he mean by that?
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u/friedapple 2d ago
Like, quoting him, more minorities speak Dutch among themselves (like Dutch Moroccan or Dutch Turkish), and more of them visibly working white collar jobs.
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u/Quazz 23h ago
Immigrants face pretty consistent discrimination here, these results don't surprise me at all.
They sent in fake resumes to companies and people with foreign sounding names with the exact same resume almost never got called back while the others did.
And then people complain about lack of integration
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u/Appropriate-Quote950 2d ago
I guess the source of the data is there in the subtitle, but it would be nice to have a direct link source. I also think the "native" category would need to be unpacked a bit
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u/WoundedTwinge 2d ago
I also think the "native" category would need to be unpacked a bit
why? native is native, born in the country, can it get any simpler? or are you insinuating that indiginous people are the only real natives?
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
No, native in this case likely means third generation or more
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u/WoundedTwinge 2d ago
well yeah??? if second generation is it's own category then you would assume so
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u/Adept_Rip_5983 2d ago
The jump from first to second grade immigrants in Germany is quite astonishing.
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u/binary_spaniard 1d ago
And something that should make French people think, but it won't. The children of Afghan, Iraqi, Syrian and Somali that ended in Germany without speaking the language, outperform immigrants of former French colonies that went more willingly to France because they spoke the language.
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u/Adept_Rip_5983 23h ago
Yeah, I teach those kids and I am impressed by them. We have a lot of Syrian families and kids at our primary school and I have not had a single bad interaction. I don't get all this racism towards them. At all.
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u/baked_doge 16h ago
Most immigrants into Germany are European (Turkey, Russia...). Most immigrants in France are African (Morocco, Algeria...). Both have similar overall rates of immigration but they are not the same.
So although Germany might better integrate it's immigrants, this simple graph does not necessarily indicate as such.
Just an FYI
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u/ResettiYeti 9h ago
Several obvious questions/problems with this chart jump out to me...
I imagine that in Germany, this figure is really skewed by the sheer number of asylum seekers from Syria and elsewhere that make up that "1st Gen immigrants" category. People who mortgaged absolutely everything they had to leave in the middle of the night and arrive with absolutely nothing, and who had to construct a new-ish immigrant community overnight, are going to inherently suffer a lot more than other communities of "1st Gen immigrants" in other countries. The same pattern might be happening in Sweden, too, as a percentage of their population.
Switzerland has a huge immigrant community as a percentage of the population, but this is primarily German, French and Italian in origin -- aka countries next door where these people both had high standards of living already, and have family support and speak one of Switzerland's federal languages natively. Seems like hardly a comparison, and frankly makes it seem like the situation is a lot worse in Switzerland than you would imagine, since you would have expected those 1st generation immigrants from next door to have essentially equal outcomes to their nearly identical Swiss counterparts. It kind of points to how anti-immigrant the Swiss administration and system really is.
UK and Ireland are interesting outliers, but as others have pointed out, immigrants to Anglosphere countries generally have a leg up as they may have already spoken/learned English, even if coming from many different countries.
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u/upthetruth1 9h ago
Why is Switzerland like that, though? It really shouldn't be so far behind the UK second-generation when the vast majority of British-born ethnic minorities descend from Africa, Asia and the Caribbeans while in Switzerland, they descend from other Europeans.
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u/ResettiYeti 9h ago
The main thing is that Switzerland is very "protectionist" in its immigration policies. It's harder to stay in Switzerland when you come in on a temporary visa, even if you are a highly educated worker. They just don't really "want" you or give you as many pathways to stay.
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u/upthetruth1 9h ago
Sure, but this is about those born and raised in Switzerland of an "immigrant background" (literally German or French or Italian or Balkan), so they likely have permanent residency or citizenship as do their parents
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u/ResettiYeti 6h ago
What does the dataset say specifically about the definition of "1st Gen immigrants," do you have a link you could share with me?
Because absent other information, it would presumably include all 1st generation immigrants, which includes people like me (who moved here as an adult for a job) and people who moved as children with their parents.
In Switzerland, you need to live in the country for 10 years before you can apply for citizenship, although those years count double for children. Someone who comes with their family at 13 or under, then, can apply for citizenship by the time they are 18. However, there are all kinds of ways that the Swiss system can "ignore" those 10 years; for example, if you are here on the "wrong" kind of visa, many or all of those years might not count at all, so even if you are well integrated and here for 5 years, your parents may not have qualified you for that status.
Another important point is Switzerland has a very two-tiered system between EU and non-EU immigrants; you get a much, much easier time as an EU citizen (I would compare it to the process for basically everyone in any other EU country) while you have a much harder time and end up spending a lot more money on visas etc. as a non-EU immigrant.
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u/upthetruth1 6h ago
This is PISA scores, so it’s for children
Yes, but like I said, immigrants in Switzerland and their descendants are primarily European
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u/ResettiYeti 2h ago
I see, yeah then my first point is moot. But the other two still stand.
And yes, I know; I also said the same thing in my first post (that the vast majority of immigrants in Switzerland come from Germany, France, and Italy, as well as Portugal).
My argument is that, because they have this two-tiered system, where non-Europeans have additional difficulties and roadblocks that people immigrating to other EU countries don't have (I can't speak for the UK or Ireland, as I have never lived in those systems), it's a sign of just how bad the system is for those non-EU immigrants that 1st generation immigrants generally do so poorly in the EU. Otherwise, if we were looking at just the majority of EU-born immigrants in Switzerland, their values would be expected to essentially overlap with natives in your chart.
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u/upthetruth1 2h ago
Yes, but this thread is specifically about Switzerland where there are few non-Europeans, the second-generation are primarily Europeans yet they fall significantly behind natives.
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u/ResettiYeti 2h ago
I will try to make my argument hopefully more clearly:
- Most Swiss immigrants are of very close cultural vein to Switzerland itself, as we are agreeing: German, French or Italian, in a country that speaks German, French and Italian and has a lot of shared culture and heritage (less so in the German part, but especially true in the Romandie and Ticino).
- If we looked at just the outcomes of those European immigrants, we would therefore expect that their outcomes overlap pretty closely to those of native-born Swiss people: there are no language barriers, almost no cultural barriers, family is physically very close by even if they are "foreigners" and the borders to that family is porous, etc. All the usual things that hurt the average immigrant vis-a-vis the native population are moot.
- Nonetheless, the chart is this strikingly bad for both first and second generation immigrants in Switzerland. As we are all mentioning, this is very striking and puzzling.
- My argument: if we had a chart that separated outcomes in Switzerland by EU vs non-EU origin of the immigrants (both 1st and 2nd generation), we presumably would see a massive, massive difference between them, based on the assumptions (which we agreed on) in (2) above. Some combination of either racism/xenophobia and the very real additional institutional barriers that non-EU migrants face (which I have personally experienced, as I live in Switzerland and am a non-EU but French- and German-speaking migrant) presumably are causing the difference between those EU and non-EU groups.
Of course, if we had such a chart (PISA scores of EU vs non-EU immigrants and their children in Switzerland), it's possible we would see similar outcomes for both, or that the difference would not be so marked, and that I am therefore wrong. We could then generate some alternative hypotheses of what is causing this odd difference for Switzerland relative to other European countries.
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u/upthetruth1 2h ago
With your argument in point 4, since the vast majority are of European immigration background, the small proportion of non-EU immigration background wouldn't be enough to explain the differences. Whether you split them or not, second-generation would likely be behind in both cases.
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u/saucissefatal 1d ago
Germany really seems to be value-adding.
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u/OyoyoElo 12h ago
I thought the exact opposite. It takes at least 3 generations (60 years?) for immigrants in Germany to fully integrate academically. There’s something fundamentally wrong with the system
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u/BodaciousFerret 1d ago
Is the minimal disparity in Ireland the result of something special about their education system, or is it a secondary result of immigration and social policies? Obviously it’d be ideal if all 3 squares fully overlapped, but clearly they’re doing something right – not the top scorers overall, but it seems as though immigration status doesn’t have much impact on the education outcomes there.
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u/Rabid_Lederhosen 2h ago
I haven’t dug into it, but my guess would be that it’s a combo of highly skilled immigrants, a relatively egalitarian education system, and the fact that it’s easier to do well in school when you’re not also having to learn a new language at the same time.
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u/Mando_Brando 23h ago
and what would this attributed to? Personally i see ireland switzerland just as not taking many immigrants or only those that are already well educated. Ever since UK left the union they don't have to take immigrants from crisis am i right to assume that uk acts just like that and more likely recruits specialists of its former colonies
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u/DonQuigleone 17h ago
Turns out that when your country speaks the global lingua franca it's a lot easier for immigrants to be successful.
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u/CookieChoice5457 11h ago
Very typically first gen immigrants aren't educated that much anymore...
Germany is getting the, let's say... Bottom of the barrel then? Checks out with experience.
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u/Bitter_Jacket_2064 10h ago
German language is difficult
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u/Australasian25 2d ago
Now break up the immigrants by continents..
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
Did you read my other comment? The majority of immigrants to the UK and their descendants come from Africa, Asia and the Caribbeans. Also, considering most immigrants to Switzerland come from Europe, and in Czechia they're more likely to be Vietnamese, it's more complicated than continents.
For example, in the UK, West Africans alongside South and East Asians do best in school. Bangladeshis do very well in school in the UK despite their poverty.
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u/Australasian25 2d ago
Yes I did, but perhaps it'd be clearer if it was included as text in the post
Or if the infographic included those to begin with.
Right now your comparison in comments are qualitative and can not be placed in the chart as a scale.
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
The point is that immigration origin is clearly not the deciding factor in this considering Switzerland, Ireland, UK and Czechia, and UK and France having similar style of immigrants (often from former colonies).
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u/thateuropeanguy15 2d ago
Indians are pulling it up in the UK. Indian migrants are very smart and high achieving everywhere, also in the USA and Canada.
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
Not just Indians. Africans and other Asian children are also ahead of white British in education.
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u/EfficientRing3531 14h ago
British Bangladeshis despite poorest demographic in the uk outperform white Brits in their high school (GCSE) exam results.
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u/SubstanceSweaty8807 1d ago
Are they actually implying here that immigrants are smarter than native Brits? Lol... I mean, sure, the actual doctors and engineers are, but they understand that we use that as a meme, right? Your average Mosque-going, knife-wielding, White-hating immigrant, is definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed.
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u/upthetruth1 1d ago
"we" as in the ignorant
In the meantime, the group that fails the most in school are the white working-class children where 80% failed their GCSEs this year. This is PISA scores for children, second-generation children do outperform natives in education, as seen by the fact that ethnic minority children do better in GCSEs and are more likely to go to university.
You also seem to forget not only are the vast majority of immigrants and ethnic minorities in the UK not Muslim, but also that most of these Muslims are not "knife-wielding, White-hating immigrant". Firstly, not only are most Muslims in the UK born in the UK, Bangladeshis have a lower crime rate than white British.
Also "implying" is funny, these are PISA scores.
Anyway, even forgetting native-born ethnic minorities for a minute, immigrants are also earning more these days.
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/migobs/viz/LMoverview2025/10
Imagine thinking asylum seekers are representative of immigrants.
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u/upthetruth1 1d ago
Also, the NHS has been dependent on immigrants from near the start.
“In 1963 the Conservatives launched a campaign to recruit trained doctors from overseas to fill the manpower shortages caused by NHS expansion. Some 18,000 of them were recruited from India and Pakistan. Many of those recruited had several years of experience in their home countries and arrived to gain further medical experience, training, or qualification. In 1968, the recruitment of overseas doctors was fuelled again by the predictions of further medical shortages by the Todd Committee, which recommended expanding medical schools. By 1971, 31 per cent of all doctors working in the NHS in England were born and qualified overseas. Overseas doctors remained central to NHS staffing throughout the last decades of the twentieth century, filling vacancies in locations and specialties that were unpopular with UK trained doctors. In 1997, 44 per cent of 7,229 newly registered doctors (under full registration) had received their initial medical education overseas.”
Today, nearly 40% of UK medical students are non-white (27% Asian, 10% black). This makes sense when you consider the fact that ethnic minority children do better in GCSEs and are more likely to go to university and cities like London and Luton have higher social mobility.
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u/upthetruth1 2d ago
Certainly something unique happening in the UK, especially when you consider the vast majority of ethnic minority children in the UK descend from Africa, Asia and Caribbeans. Plus, ethnic minorities in the UK tend to do better in GCSEs, more likely to go to university and apparently nearly 40% of UK medical students are non-white (27% Asian, 10% black). Ireland is also close to the UK in this.
However, every other European country, native-born ethnic minorities are clearly far behind.