How do religious beliefs impact economic inactivity among British-Pakistani Muslim women?

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relationship between economic inactivity and religiosity. The aim of the analysis of qualitative data presented here is to examine whether, and how, religious beliefs impact on decisions British-Pakistani Muslim women make about economic activity.

Analysis of interview data reveals that none of the interviewees held the belief that economic activity was impermissible (haram) for women in Islam. However, some interviewees held religiously-informed beliefs that paid employment was undesirable, with marked differences in attitudes to economic activity by both age and migrant generation. Alongside this, interviewees described structural constraints to economic activity, for example, limited opportunities for well-paid, local, part-time work. Overall, religious beliefs emerge as significant in the lives of Muslim women because they allow them to make sense of, and find value in, their marginalised positions in relation to the labour market rather than as drivers of economic inactivity.

KEYWORDS:

• Labour market inequalities
• Muslim penalty
• religion and the labour market
• British Muslims in the labour market
• religion and economic inactivity
• British Muslim women

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the research participants who gave such generous and open accounts of their everyday lives, and the local community members and organisations who supported my fieldwork in Cheetham Hill. With thanks also to my PhD supervisors Professor Sophie Gilliat-Ray and Professor Ralph Fevre for their continuing support, and to Dr Siobhan McAndrew and Professor Sin Yi Cheung for their mentorship. I am grateful to Sophie and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This study was generously funded by the Jameel Educational Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

Ethical approval was obtained from the School of Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee of Cardiff University. Reference No: SREC/1466.