Have British Jews Fully Assimilated in the UK Labour Market?

This paper analyses the patterns of occupational attainment and earnings among the Jewish community in Britain using UK Labour Force Survey data (2002-2010). The findings suggest that although British-Jews cannot be distinguished from the majority main stream population of British-White in terms of their overall occupational attainment and earnings, it seems that they have managed to integrate through patterns of self-employment and concentration in the service sector economy, particularly in banking and financial services. It is argued that this self-employment profile is a Jewish strategy used to minimise dependency on majority group employers and by doing so to helping to escape any religious penalties.

eligious belief, religious affiliation and attendance have declined in the UK. The decline is most evident in relation to the majority white ethnic group (Crockett & Voas, 2006;Voas & Crockett, 2005), but also in relation to the non-white ethnic minority population, especially when looking at the rates of intergenerational decline (Voas, 2006). However, religious identity for most people in the UK remains important, at least to the extent that they select a particular religious category in the census and the other official surveys whenever the question about religious affiliation is present. Furthermore, evidence from the US, Canada and the UK suggests that religion is significantly related to labour market outcomes (Brown, 2000;Burstein, 2007;Chiswick & Huang, 2008;Khattab, 2009;Khattab & Johnston, 2013;Meng & Sentance, 1984;Model & Lin, 2002;Steen, 1996). These studies have revealed significant labour market differences between various religious groups and denominations. While UK based studies (e.g. Heath & Matrtin, 2013;Khattab & Johnston, 2013) have highlighted the disadvantaged position of Muslims and Sikh, other studies (mainly USbased studies) have focused on the relative advantages of Jews over the majority populations in the US and Canada in terms of education, employment and earnings (Burstein, 2007;Chiswick & Huang, 2008;Meng & Sentance, 1984;Steen, 1996).
While Jews in the US have received considerable research attention in the past (Burstein, 2007;Chiswick, 1983;Chiswick, 1985;Chiswick & Huang, 2008;Steinberg, 1977), we know relatively little about how well Jews do in the UK. To the best of our knowledge, not a single study has focused solely on this group, despite their importance and long residence in the UK. This is the first paper to systematically analyse the educational, employment profiles and earnings of British Jews using the Labour Force Survey (LFS) data from 2002-2010. By doing so, this paper expands our knowledge in relation to this specific religious group, but more generally it contributes to the literature on religious differences in the UK labour market and beyond.
Most previous studies analysing ethno-religious penalties in the UK labour market have excluded Jews from the analysis (Heath & Martin, 2013;Lindley, 2002;Model & Lin, 2002). However, from the very little that has been published so far in relation to Jews in the UK, there is a sense of considerable educational and employment success (Khattab, 2009;Khattab & Johnston, 2013). Yet, the lack of systematic research and data leaves us with speculations on the extent of their success, the factors that explain it and whether Jews in the UK are vulnerable to the hostile attitudes against immigrants and minorities (including White and European groups) throughout the country. This study aims to answer these questions by systematically analysing the educational and economic performance of Jews in the UK and drawing on theories of human capital, cultural distinctiveness and particular strategies, and on theories of group threat and competition. In the next section we will review these theoretical perspectives followed by a discussion of the study context (background). In the fourth section we will discuss our data and methods followed by a presentation of the empirical results. Finally, we discuss these results and provide some conclusions along with implications for further research in this area.

Particular Human Capital
General theories of human capital explain between-group differences in the labour market (e.g. employment status and earnings) as a result of their differential educational qualifications and skills (Coleman, 1988;Mincer, 1958). Previous studies on American Jews have pointed out that controlling for human capital between Jews and non-Jews in the US does not explain their between-group differences (Burstein, 2007). A number of researchers have explained the remaining differences (after controlling for human capital) by turning to Jewish particularity, most often the importance that Jews place on education (Chiswick, 1983) and the "Jewish way" of being involved in communal religious organisations (Hartman & Hartman, 1996). However, these studies neither provided any strong empirical support to this unique characteristic of Jews nor explained its source.
However, a recent study by Botticini and Eckstein (2007) (see also Botticini & Eckstein, 2005) has provided some explanation on how and where this particular human capital has come from. They argue that following the destruction of the Second Temple, the educational and religious reforms that took place under the new religious leadership obligated every male Jewish to read and to teach his sons the Torah (p. 924). This reform created a large number of Jewish males who could read and write, although the majority were farmers, similar to other populations within their areas of residence. With the expansion of urban centres in the Muslim empire during the Seventh and Eighth centuries, Jews began to migrate to these centres as their economic returns there were higher than that in agriculture. Given their initial knowledge in reading and writing, they had an advantage over many other groups which facilitated a rapid move into urban occupations. The high economic return on education within these urban centres (e.g. Baghdad) encouraged these groups to invest even more in education and other related skills as the demand for urban and skilled occupations was rapidly increasing with the Establishment of further new cities, such as Samarra in 836 (p. 939). Thus, Jews as a minority within the Arab and Muslim Empire specialised in urban skilled occupations which helped to generate various forms of capital.
These capitals were (and still are to a large extent) highly transferable and Jews have been able to utilise them in every place they have migrated to, including Eastern Europe, Russia and later to the rest of Europe and America. Likewise, these can be key factors in explaining the success of Jews in the west in general and at present times as argued by Botticini and Eckstein (2005). However, these capitals per se are not sufficient to enable Jews (or any other group) to be successful in education and in the labour market without the intervention of other important factors, most notably social networks, residential patterns, minimum or none majority-minority group threat and competition which will be discussed below.

Segregation and Social Capital
There is a clear tendency amongst Jews, perhaps as with other immigrant groups, to voluntarily live in segregated areas forming areas with high Jewish density. For example, at present, Jews in the UK are one of the most segregated religious groups (Peach, 2006). Their high residential concentration in North London and in the North-West of Britain is remarkably high. The same pattern can also be found in the US (Pagnini & Morgan, 1990), which began with migration of Jews in large numbers from Europe (Germany) in the second half of the nineteenth century to America (Bernasconi, 2002). Although there is no research or analysis of how segregation or social networks operate amongst Jews in the UK, an analysis by Portes and Manning (2001) has suggested that segregation and networks amongst Jews were key factors in their economic success. They have argued that "Jewish enclave capitalism depended, for its emergence and development, precisely on those resources made available by a solidaristic ethnic community: protected access to labor and markets, informal source of credit, and business information" (Portes & Manning, 2001, p. 572). The discussion of the Jewish (and Japanese) enclaves has lead them to conclude that there were three prerequisites needed for the emergence of an ethnic enclave economy: the presence of a substantial number of immigrants with business experience acquired in the sending country; the availability of capital; and the availability of labor" (Portes & Manning, 2001, p. 574). There is no reason to suspect that these very same processes are not at play amongst Jews in the UK and therefore it can be argued that their residential segregation and strong social ties (social capital) in conjunction with their initial human and economic capital contributes to their success.
Previous studies on minority-majority (racial) inequality and discrimination have also pointed out that some minorities are actually able to minimise or offset the effect of discrimination practiced by dominantmajority groups against them by working within their ethnic economic enclaves (Portes, 1987;Portes & Jensen, 1989) or turning to selfemployment (Abada, Hou & Lu, 2014;Constant & Zimmermann, 2004). Both strategies (working within the ethnic enclave or turning to selfemployment) make workers less dependent on majority-group employers and do not have to compete, not directly at least, with majority-workers, which can significantly reduce the negative impact of discrimination or the sense of threat amongst majority groups.

The Lack of Between-Group Competition
Previous studies have shown that racial disadvantage (possibly resulting from discrimination) is a major factor accounting for the under-performance of many minority groups in the British labour market, relative to their educational qualifications and other resources. Racism by employers and discriminatory practices creates these problems, mostly on the grounds of inter-group physical (phenotype) and cultural differences (Khattab, 2009;Khattab & Johnston, 2013;Meer & Modood, 2009;Modood, 2005). Moreover, studies explaining the disadvantaged positions of Black-Americans have associated the size and visibility of these groups within local labour markets and the level of discrimination against them (Cohen & Huffman, 2007;Huffman & Cohen, 2004).
However, ethnically (in terms of skin colour and visibility), Jews in the UK see themselves and are seen by others (mainstream society) as belonging to the white majority ethnic group. As such, they can access social and economic opportunities similarly to the majority group. In fact, a recent study examined the educational and occupational attainment of various ethnic groups has pointed out that educationally and occupationally Jews do better than Christian-Whites (Khattab, 2009). This in turn suggests that Jews in the UK, unlike most of the other ethno-religious groups, do not face any clear penalties in education or employment. Hence, it is reasonable to hypothesise that Jews in the UK will be educationally and economically more advantaged compared with the majority Christian-White British. Additionally, since Jews have been a minority that has over the centuries specialised in certain urban skilled occupations (Botticini & Eckstein, 2005;Botticini & Eckstein, 2007), they are likely to be found within occupations that require high qualifications and specialisation, where many highly qualified Jews can also work as self-employed. This strategy is very often used by migrants in order to reduce their dependence on majority employers and by doing so they are able to minimise or offset the effect of discrimination (Abada, Hou & Lu, 2014;Constant & Zimmermann, 2004).
According to Parker (2004), British Jewish groups choose selfemployment as a form of income generation because of the limited opportunities they have faced in the labour market as well as their skills in self-employment. However, levels of self-employment have decreased among subsequent generations who have widened their opportunities in the labour market. Historically, self-employment has always been a resourceful phenomenon for British Jewish groups across time and place. The majority of male immigrants to London who originally came to the East End of London did so to find a better life through employment, while fewer immigrants from Eastern Europe spent their time in religious study. The majority entered the tailoring trade, a seasonal industry with casual employment. The Jewish wife usually helped out in the tailoring workshop, with small direct wages, and tried to balance her role as breadwinner with her role of mother and homemaker (Kershen, 2001). In a study by Waterman and Kosmin (1987) carried out in the 1980s, around a fifth of British Jewish groups (21.9%) classified themselves as self-employed, which was around double compared with the general population (10.8%), although it was also felt that '[t]he Jewish community in the United Kingdom is in numerical decline through a combination of forces such as low birth rate, ageing, outmarriage, assimilation and migration' (ibid, 86).

Background
The 2011 Census reported 260,000 Jews in the UK (ONS, 2012), where the overwhelming majority of British Jewish groups lived in England (96.7%), 2.5% lived in Scotland and only 0.8% lived in Wales. About 60% of Jewish people live in Greater London. The other 40% are dispersed in other urban areas in the UK such as Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Brighton and Bournemouth (Graham et al., 2007). The Official National Statistics (2005) showed that the Jewish population had a much older structure than the general population in the UK. The median age was 44.3 years compared to 38.1 years for British groups as a whole. Although the size of the Jewish population in Britain as a whole has increased, some studies have pointed out that in terms of faith and belonging to the Jewish religion, there is a tendency for some people to convert and move out of the faith, especially in Scotland (Voas, 2006).
The vast majority of Jews in Britain are white, or at least they tend to select the category of White in the census. While orthodox Jews are visible within the public space due to their dress, most secular Jews or those who do not necessarily adhere to Jewish dress code are invisible in the public space. In other words, they are likely to be considered part of the dominant race or majority ethnic group, and as such facilitating their access to social and economic resources. Within particular organisations and institutions, they are likely to be treated on an equal basis, unlike African-Caribbean other ethnic minorities, as argued by Edwards (2008).
In terms of education, the 2001 UK Census indicated that more than half of British Jewish groups (55.7%) aged 25-54 had higher level qualifications compared with about a quarter (25.6%) of the general population in the same age category. These figures demonstrate a strong relationship between age and educational attainment levels since successive generations have experienced various educational improvements. Since 1960, the Jewish community began to focus on higher education levels because they believed that the more parents became educated the greater the success of their own children in the future. It was a belief that gaining higher educational levels increased the competitive economic advantage of young British Jewish groups and thereby their potential future earnings (Graham, Schmoll & Waterman, 2007). British Jewish groups have consistently focused on the educational attainments of subsequent generations (ONS, 2007).
Based on the 2001 Census, full-time employed British Jewish groups accounted for 48.6% of all Jewish people aged 25 over compared to 61.6% of the general population. The 2001 Census also showed that Jewish young people aged 16-24 years were less likely to be economically active (45.1%) than their counterparts from the general population in England and Wales (65%). This is because young Jewish people were more likely to be in education (89.2% were in schools, colleges and universities) compared to 76.2% of the population in England and Wales as a whole. More than twothirds of British Jewish groups (65.9%) aged 25 and above were economically active compared to 66.8% of the general population (ONS, 2001).
The above description gives a sense of the remarkable success of this minority group. In this study I utilise recent data obtained from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) in order to systematically analyse the characteristics of Jewish educational attainment and employment outcomes over a nine-year period . In the next section I discuss the data and methods used here.

Methods and Data
To examine our questions and argument data obtained from the UK Labour Force Survey has been utilised. In order to increase the sample of British Jewish, April-June quarters over a period of nine years (2002-2010) were pooled. The analysis was carried out on a final sample of 395,643 Christian and Jewish men and women aged 19-65. The LFS provides a wide range of information on each respondent, including qualifications, employment patterns, earnings, ethnic and religious backgrounds, place of birth, nationality and migration histories making it an excellent source of data for this study. The possibility of pooling a number of surveys over a number of years makes it viable to study relatively small groups using a sufficiently large sample, as is carried out here. Other ethnic or religious groups other than Jewish groups (compared to Christian groups) were excluded for theoretical and analytical purposes, and in order to keep the comparisons between Jewish groups and the majority group as distinct as possible. In addition, although most of the other groups have been of research interest for some time, the Jewish community in the UK, especially in comparison to Christian groups, has been somewhat neglected. In what follows the variables used in this study are described.

Dependent Variables
The dependent variable here are occupational class and earnings. In relation to the occupational classes, a five-category version of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-88) is used. The original onedigit scale includes nine categories. For the sake of simplifying the final model, and in order to avoid empty cells or cells with low counts, a fivecategory scale as shown in Table 1 below is utilised. Semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations are used as the reference group. This scheme is preferred and not the NS-SEC class scheme as the interest is in examining the influence of being self-employed on class allocation. Self-employment has been taken into account in constructing the NS-SEC, especially in relation to the petty bourgeoisie class, hence the use of the ISCO-88 scheme. Regarding the earnings (pay) variable, it has been measured using the 'gross hourly pay' variable as it has been derived by the Office of National Statistics. In the regression model I have used the natural logarithm transformation to fit the normal distribution requirement (Oaxaca, 1973). Due to potential auto-correlation of wages within specific occupations, a mixed model (multilevel analysis) will be used with the two-digit occupations (the two-digit British Standard Occupational Classification SOC90/SOC2000) defined as the level-2 (Snijders & Bosker, 2002). All the other individual variables will be used within the fixed effect part of the model.

Independent Variables
Religion: the variable has been coded into two categories: Christians (reference group) and Jewish groups. This variable does not measure religiosity or the extent to which respondents practice religion but only as a 132 Khattab -Have Brisish Jews Fully Assimilated? category of a self-identified faith affiliation as measured in the LFS. In order to avoid including other minority ethnic groups in the analysis, the Christian and Jewish faith categories have included respondents who have identified themselves as being white British when answering the question on ethnicity. Age: used as a continuous variable. Age squared: was introduced to control for the non-linear relationship between age and earnings. Marital status: coded into three categories; single, divorced or separated and married or living with a partner. The latter group was used as the reference. Sex: Gender is included in the final model as a dummy variable (1 indicates men and 0 indicates women). The 0 category was used as the reference.
Year of survey: this variable has been used in order to control for the change in variance within the dependent variable due to period effect. Educational qualifications: These have been re-coded into five categories: high tertiary (academic), low tertiary (post-secondary, but pre-university), high secondary (A-Levels), low secondary and finally people with no qualifications. The last category was used as the reference group. Full-time employment: a dummy variable has been included in order to control for variations within the mode of employment; full-time versus parttime. Public sector: due the differences in wages between private and public sectors, a dummy variable was introduced with private sectors as the reference group. Length of experience within current employer: this is a numeric variable measuring the length of experience in years. Generation: first generation was defined as those who arrived in Britain after the age of six and were not born in the UK. Second generation refers to those people who were born in the UK or arrived before the age of six. Region: due to the London pay allowance, dummy variables for Inner London and Outer London have been included in the model for pay with the rest of the UK as a comparator. Self-employment: This variable has been re-coded into two categories; those who were self-employed (1) and those who were in any of the other employment categories such as employees, unemployed and economically inactive. Controlling for this variable turned out to be highly important.
Interaction terms: two sets of interaction terms have been defined, one for religion by qualification and the other religion by self-employment. The first interaction term reveals the importance of qualifications amongst Jewish groups, and the second examines the influence of self-employment among Jewish groups.

Findings
First, descriptive analysis is presented through which Figures 1-5 and Table  2 will be discussed, followed by the multivariate analysis in Tables 3-5, where factors affecting the occupational class position and earnings of Jewish and Christian groups in Britain are discussed.

Descriptive Analysis
Figure 1 below illustrates the enormous differences between UK Jewish and Christian groups in terms of qualifications, particularly in relation to higher qualifications (high tertiary). Jewish men and women are far more likely than Christian men and women to hold academic degrees. Almost one out of two Jewish men, and just over one out of three Jewish women holds a university degree. However, less than one fifth of Christian men and women can claim such an educational outcome.
It appears that the main gender differences amongst Jewish groups are in relation to higher qualifications, whereas differences amongst Christians are in relation to high and low secondary. Compared to Jewish women, Jewish men are over-represented in higher qualifications, and comparable Christian men are over-represented in the category of high secondary. Figure 2 above presents the economic status of men and women within both religions. The only noteworthy finding here is the proportion of selfemployment amongst Jewish men and women. It appears that, compared to Christians, there is a clear tendency among Jewish men and women not to be in employment but instead to be self-employed. Just under a third (29%) of all Jewish men and over tenth (13%) of all Jewish women are self-employed.
Furthermore, there is clear tendency amongst Jewish men and women to be concentrated in some economic sectors more than in others, as can be seen in Table 2 below. For example, over a third of Jewish men (36%) and    Furthermore, Jewish men, more so than Christian men, are likely to obtain jobs in education, health and the public administration sectors. Jewish 136 Khattab -Have Brisish Jews Fully Assimilated? women are as likely as Christian women to obtain jobs in this sector. Finally, it is worth highlighting the high concentrations of Christian men in the manufacturing, construction, agriculture and fishing sectors (38%).
As shown earlier (in Figure 2 above), Jewish men tend to be selfemployed more than Christians. Figure 3 below shows that this tendency runs across all the five economic sectors in this study, particularly in the banking and finance sectors. Within each sector, the proportion of selfemployed Jewish groups is significantly greater than among Christians.
Turning to Figure 4 below, it demonstrates even greater differences between Jewish and Christian groups. Jewish men and women are far more advantaged than their Christian counterparts. It appears that almost four out five Jewish men (81%) and about three out of five Jewish women (61%) are employed within the managerial, professional and semi-professional categories.  Figure 5 presents the mean gross hourly pay for Jews and Christians. It shows that on average, Jewish men have the highest gross hourly pay. Their average pay was about 170% higher than the average pay among their Christian counterparts throughout the period 2002 to 2010 (£22.89 and £13.29 foe Jews and Christian respectively). A similar pattern was also found among women, but the difference between Jewish women and Christian women was slightly lower and stood at £3.37 per hour, which is about 35% more for Jewish women throughout the period under study. In fact, the average earning among Jewish women was similar to that among Christian men (£13.25 and £13.17 among Christian men and Jewish women respectively).
The above data show that Jewish have a higher educational attainment, better occupational attainment and higher earnings. The data also show that Jews have different profile, especially in terms of self-employment and concentration within some economic sectors more than in others. It is possible that the higher educational attainment and their self-employment within some economic sectors explain their occupational and pay advantage? The next multivariate analysis helps answer this question.

Multivariate Analysis
Results of the multinomial logistic regression model contrasting the four occupational categories with the category of semi-skilled and unskilled occupations are shown in Table 3. The focus nevertheless is on the first category of managerial, professional and semi-professional occupations. Normatively, this is without doubt the most prestigious and the most desirable category.
The coefficients reported in the table are odds-ratios. An odds-ratio of one (1) indicates lack of influence of the factor in question. A coefficient less than one illustrates a negative influence and a greater than one coefficient indicates a positive impact.
The first important finding to highlight refers to the main effect of religion, which is hugely significant, suggesting that Jewish groups are about six times more likely to be in the managerial and professional category than Christians. Because religion is part of an interaction term, the main effect of religion refers to those having no qualification or is not self-employed. Men, surprisingly, are less likely than women to be in the first category relative to the reference category of semi-skilled and unskilled occupations. However, looking at the category of service workers, shop and market sales workers, it seems that men are about four and half times more likely to be in this category than women, relative to the reference category.
Qualifications (amongst Christians, since it is part of an interaction term with religion) operate in the expected direction. Compared to no qualification, any other level of qualification, especially high tertiary, qualifications increase the chances of being in any occupational category relative to the last category. This influence is notably higher in relation to the first category of managerial and professional occupations.
In turning to the impact of qualifications amongst the Jewish group shown at the bottom part of Table 3, it seems that impact of qualification operates in the same way as among the majority group, but with one minor difference. Taking the interaction term into account, it seems that Jews with higher education are 29 times more likely to be in the salariat class, whereas Christians with higher education are about 144 times more likely to be in the salariat relative to people with no qualifications. This difference between the groups in relation to the impact of qualifications might be associated with a reduced value due to qualification inflation among Jews. The reduced value of qualifications among Jews can be seen in the exceptionally low (lower than 1) and statistically significant odds ratios for the interaction terms of Jewish group X qualifications (respectively 0.20, 0.16, 0.27 and 0.42 for each qualification in descending order). Since in general the impact of higher qualification on obtaining salariat jobs is still very positive and significant, this reduction in the value of qualification cannot be seen as a disadvantage, at least not a structural disadvantage. Furthermore, the reduced value of qualifications among Jewish groups is balanced by the positive impact of self-employment. Self-employment among Christians (the main effect) is negative for most of the occupational categories, and especially for the category of managerial and professional jobs (0.59). But the impact of self-employment amongst Jewish groups is positive (1.70). That is, being a self-employed Jew increases the odds of obtaining managerial or professional occupation. This suggests that Jewish groups might be using self-employment as a path into the salariat class.
In order to scrutinise these results further, predicted probabilities for obtaining a salariat job have been calculated using two regression models in addition to the one presented earlier. The first controls only for the religious background and the second controls for the other individual factors while excluding the religious background. These different models allow the revelation of any differences in the likelihood of obtaining a salariat job that are associated with the religious background (religious penalty or advantage) (Carmichael & Woods, 2000). These probabilities are presented in Table 4 for a typical person defined as someone aged 30 to 35 (male or female), married, with academic degree and lives in inner London.
The results in Table 4 show a very large difference between the gross probability (Model 1) and the net probability (Model 3) for both Jewish men and women. The initial difference was about 27% and 18% in favour of a typical Jewish man and woman respectively relative to Christian White-British typical person. This probability has been sharply dropped to only 2.4% among a Jewish typical person (men and women) suggesting that the initial large difference we have seen is due to individual and human capital differences between the groups. To examine earnings among the groups, 3 different models are discussed in Table 5. The firs model examines the difference between Jews and the majority group while controlling only for occupations as Level-2. The results of this model show a significant difference between the groups, in that the logged gross hourly pay among Jews is significantly higher than that among Christians. In the second model all other individual factors except for qualifications are included. The results show a sharp drop in the coefficient that is associated with being a Jew from 0.117 to 0.066, but this coefficient is still statistically significant. The third model shows that including qualification has caused the coefficient of Jews to drop further down to only 0.04, a level at which the coefficient also loses its statistical significance suggesting that individual differences and human capital explain the pay difference between Jews and Christians.

Discussion and Concluding Thoughts
The observations made in this paper are in line with the general view that Jewish groups perform well in education and in the labour market. They are hugely overrepresented in higher education and within managerial, professional and semi-professional occupations, similarly to Jews in the US (Burstein, 2007;Chiswick, 1983;Chiswick, 1985;Chiswick & Huang, 2008;Hartman & Hartman, 1996). Their investment in education on the one hand and their concentration in economic sectors such as finance and banking on the other gives support to the argument of Botticini and Eckstein (2007) on how human capital is invested in order to guarantee a high level of economic returns. Additionally, the findings of this study have shown that Jews in the UK are significantly over-represented in the self-employment category within each of the economic sectors that have been analysed here, most notably in finance and banking. Note that historically a large proportion of Jews specialised in the finance sector (e.g. moneylending), especially in Middle Ages Europe (Botticini & Eckstein, 2005, p. 942). Self-employment amongst minorities is often a strategy of survival, especially during economic recessions (Abada, Hou & Lu, 2014;Constant & Zimmermann, 2004), and through which these minorities and immigrants can reduce the risk of unemployment. Other minorities tend to use selfemployment in order to avoid discrimination and increase their economic returns on their qualifications by reducing their dependence on majority employers (Portes & Manning, 2001). Our analysis here suggests that Jews in the UK are not different in this regard. It seems that turning to selfemployment Jews in the UK secure higher economic returns within the economic sectors within which they specialise. Moreover, it minimises the risk of facing penalties (i.e. discrimination) on the grounds of their Jewishness, given the fact that previously they experienced racialisation and some hostility, especially in the early days of Jewish immigration from Russia and Poland (Knepper, 2007).
To sum up, British Jews have higher educational achievements, which have translated into occupational and earnings attainment as high as the majority White-British providing an evidence of high assimilation within the UK labour market as in politics and other areas. No doubt their success in education and the labour market is also related to social networks and strong social ties between families, firms and organisations. In the current study we could not examine this hypothesis. Further research is needed in order to examine the extent and ways through which social networks (social capital) is been utilised amongst Jews in the UK.