Dozen British Pakistanis Elected to UK Parliament in Elections 2017

Twelve British Pakistanis, including 5 women, have been elected members of parliament (MPs) in recent elections held in the United Kingdom, according to media reports.  Seven of them are members of the Labor Party and three belong to the Conservative Party. This sets a new record with the increase of two MPs from the May 2012 elections that resulted in the election of 10 MPs of Pakistani origin. British Pakistanis make up 1.8% of the British population, about the same as their representation in the House of Commons.

Six of the Twelve British-Pakistani MPs

British Pakistani MPs and Peers:

In addition to the 12 British Pakistanis in the House of Commons, there are 8 members of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament, bringing the total strength of British Pakistanis in the UK parliament to 20. Most of them are from very humble backgrounds in rural Pakistan. Majority of Pakistanis in the UK are from Mirpur and its surrounding villages in Azad Kashmir. They or their parents migrated to Britain when they were given compensation by Pakistani government for their land to make way for the building of the massive Mangla Dam after the signing of the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan in 1960. Five of the twelve British Pakistani MPs in the new parliament are from Azad Kashmir. 

London Mayor Sadiq Khan:

Last year saw the election of Sadiq Khan as mayor of London, making him the first Muslim mayor of a major western capital city. Mayor Sadiq Khan is also of Pakistani-origin. Khan's father migrated to Britain in 1960s and worked as a London bus driver. Khan comes from a family of two generations of immigrants: His grandparents migrated from what is now India to the newly created state of Pakistan in 1947 and his parents migrated from Karachi to London in 1969. Sadiq Khan was born in London in 1970.

British Pakistanis' Struggles:

While the British Pakistanis have made some headway in the public sector in their new home, they continue to face discrimination, particularly in the private sector.  A 2016 study by the government’s Social Mobility Commission found that the "children of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin in Britain have outperformed other ethnic groups to achieve rapid improvements at every level of education, but are significantly less likely to be employed in managerial or professional jobs than their white counterparts".

The study said that the "minority ethnic pupils (including Pakistanis) are outperforming white working class children in English tests throughout school, with white British teenagers coming bottom of the pile in the subject at GCSE level".

British Pakistani Doctors: 

Pakistan is the second largest source of doctors of foreign origin serving in the United Kingdom, according to OECD. Indians make up 34% of the foreign doctors in Britain, followed by 11% from Pakistan.

Summary:

British Pakistanis have achieved significant success in spite of their humble origins and discrimination they face in their adopted home. 12 of them serve as members of the House of Commons and 8 in the House of Lords. Mayor Sadiq Khan of London, the first Muslim leader of a major western capital, is the son of a London bus driver who migrated from Pakistan. British Pakistani children are outperforming their white working class peers in schools. British Pakistani doctors are the second largest population of doctors of foreign origin in the United Kingdom.  The British Pakistanis are among the best of the Pakistani diaspora, or any diaspora, in the world.

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Comment by Riaz Haq on May 30, 2023 at 9:53pm

Why Pakistani students benefit the most from going to university

https://theconversation.com/why-pakistani-students-benefit-the-most...

By Beth Daley
Editor and GM

The benefits are especially large for (British) Pakistani students, with an estimated boost to average earnings of more than a third by age 30. Adding up predicted gains over the whole life cycle and taking into account taxes and student loans, we found that doing a degree is worth around £200,000 for Pakistani students – around twice the average return for all students we calculated in previous work.

This is not because Pakistani graduates have especially high earnings. In fact, the opposite is true: Pakistani graduates have the lowest graduate earnings of all ethnic groups, with typical earnings at age 30 of £23,000 for men and £19,000 for women.

How The Conversation is different: We explain without oversimplifying.
Learn more
Instead the reason is that – based on comparing similar people who did and didn’t go to university – Pakistani graduates would have earned much less had they not gone to university. Typical earnings at age 30 of Pakistani men and women who did not go to university are only £13,000 for men and £11,000 for women.

An important factor explaining the large earnings gains for Pakistani graduates (compared to not attending university) appears to be that Pakistani students are more likely than White British students to choose subjects with good job prospects at university, such as business, law, or pharmacology. They are also less likely to choose degrees with low or negative financial returns, such as creative arts.



These findings appear to contradict a claim in the government’s recent race commission report. According to the report, an explanation for the low graduate earnings of many ethnic minority groups is that “ethnic minority students, and especially Black students, from lower social status backgrounds are not being well advised on which courses to take at university”.

Our findings suggest that the opposite is true for South Asian students, as they tend to study more lucrative subjects than white students. We also find no evidence that black students choose lower-return subjects than white students. This does not mean that poor career advice is not a problem – but it doesn’t seem to affect ethnic minorities disproportionately.

The government’s report also suggests that ethnic minorities have low graduate earnings because they attend less selective universities. It is true that students from ethnic minorities – especially black students – are more likely to attend lower tariff universities, and that graduates of these institutions earn less than other graduates.

But importantly, this does not mean that these universities offer low returns. Many graduates of these institutions would have had much lower earnings still if they had not gone to university at all. Overall, we found no evidence that ethnic minorities’ institution choices lower their gains from attending university.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 21, 2023 at 10:27am

The UK Government data on British household wealth (April 2016 to March 2018) by ethnicity shows that Pakistani household median wealth is £224,500, the second highest after British White and Indian household median wealth of just over £313,000

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhous...


White households median £313,900 mean £590,400
Indian households median £313,200 mean £493,800
Pakistani households median £224,500 mean £302,100
Chinese households median £77,300 mean £348,400
Bangladeshi households median £65,600 mean £141,100
Other Asian households median £162,100 mean £367,800
Black Caribbean households median £85,900 mean £379,200

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 21, 2023 at 8:52pm

Higher education as the pathway to personal and community success for Pakistani and Bangladeshi people: A systematic review

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13613324.2021.1997976


By Shames MaskeenORCID Icon,Jacob Matthews,Debbie M. Smith,Helen J. Stain &Lisa. A. D. Webster


Amalgamated, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have been found to have higher HE participation rates (53%) than the White British group (36%) but lower than the Black (amalgamated; 57%) and Indian (72%) groups (Allen, Parameshwaran, and Thomson Citation2016). However, when analysed separately, Pakistanis (56.5%) are less likely to progress to HE than Bangladeshis (64.9%) at all HE institutions by age 19 (Hubble, Bolton, and Lewis Citation2021). Reasons for combining ethnic groups for analysis include small sample sizes and preliminary identification of similar rates of HE applications (Boliver Citation2013). Thus, it is often difficult in the literature to differentiate the HE participation decision between Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

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