Funded by the ESRC, this programme of work investigates economic opportunities across racial and ethnic groups in the United Kingdom, focusing on five interlinked domains: identity, education, crime and justice, labour market, and wealth and inheritance.
The economics of race and ethnicity
The UK is increasingly ethnically diverse but substantial inequalities persist.
The UK is increasingly ethnically diverse. There have been significant improvements in the economic, and especially educational, success of some ethnic minorities in recent years. But not all have shared in this success. Substantial ethnic inequalities in multiple domains across the life course persist, and many continue across generations. The experience of minority groups has been quite different in terms of how far their economic outcomes have become similar to or different from the majority. There have been equally important differences within minority groups, between men and women and by social class background.
Even as the extent of ethnic inequalities is recognised to be of public and political salience, the causes and solutions remain contested. Despite an important body of existing qualitative and quantitative research from multiple disciplines, substantial gaps remain in knowledge and robust policy recommendations.
The ambition of this project is to establish new, authoritative and policy-relevant evidence and understanding in this contested area. We will do so by providing a detailed account of how ethnic economic inequalities emerge, evolve and are maintained across the life course at a level of detail and in ways not previously possible. We will use newly available administrative and linked data, tracking different life stages, alongside longitudinal survey data and primary data collection. Developing an integrated programme of work across domains allows robust conclusions to be drawn about what drives disadvantage for different ethnic groups, and for men and women and different social classes within groups.
Publications
The team
The programme is led by Imran Rasul, with Monica Costa Dias and Lucinda Platt.
Imran Rasul is Professor of Economics at University College London and Director of the Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at IFS.
Monica Costa Dias is Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol and Deputy Research Director at IFS.
Lucinda Platt is Professor of Social Policy and Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Imran Rasul
Imran is Director of the CPP Institute and Professor of Economics at University College London
Monica Costa Dias
Monica is an IFS Deputy Research Director, CPP Institute Co-director and Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol.
Lucinda Platt
Lucinda Platt is a Research Fellow of the IFS and Professor of Social Policy and Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
They will be working with Sonya Krutikova (lead on education strand), Carl Emmerson (lead on wealth and inheritance strand), Jonathan Cribb, Jack Britton, Sarah Cattan, Hikaru Kawarazaki, Laurence O'Brien, Julia Loh and Pratyush Tiwari.
Sonya Krutikova
Sonya is an IFS Deputy Research Director, CPP Institute Co-director and Professor of Economics at the University of Manchester.
Jonathan Cribb
Jonathan joined IFS in 2011. His research areas includes: pensions, ageing and demographic change, public sector pay, housing, and inequalities.
Jack Britton
Jack's main interests lie in human capital accumulation and discrete choice dynamic modelling.
Sarah Cattan
Sarah is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Hikaru Kawarazaki
Hikaru is a postdoctoral fellow and works in the Justice sector. He received his PhD in economics from University College London in November 2025.
Laurence O'Brien
Laurence is in the Retirement, Savings and Ageing sector. His work focuses on people’s savings decisions and on economic activity in later life.
Julia Loh
Julia is a Research Economist in the Human Capital Development sector. Her work focuses on topics in education, health, and development economics.
Pratyush Tiwari
Pratyush is a PhD Candidate at UCL.. His research interests are in the fields of political economy, labour economics and development economics.
Simon Burgess
Research interests include the economics of education, the performance of ethnic minorities in schools and ethnic segregation.
Bridget Byrne
Director of CoDE (Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity).
Claudia Diehl
Research interests include integration processes among new immigrants in Europe and on xenophobia and ethnic discrimination.
Anthony Heath
Anthony Heath is the Founding Director of the Centre for Social Investigation at Nuffield College, Oxford.
Javier Polavieja
Research Professor and Director of the D-Lab at the Institute of Public Goods & Policies, Spanish National Research Council (IPP-CSIC).
Steph Scott
Steph Scott is a Lecturer in Public Health and Qualitative Methods and holds a Trustee role with the charity NE Youth.
Ebonya Washington
Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. Research interests include interplay of race, gender, and political representation