Not black and white

非黑即白

Why second-generation migrants in Britain report more discrimination

为什么英国第二代移民受到更多歧视

They are twice as likely as their parents to say they have been unfairly treated

他们认为自己受到不公平对待的可能性是他们父母的两倍

Jan 25th 2020 |

FEW SUBJECTS are more chewed over in Britain than migration and race. The country will finally leave the European Union (EU) next week, a policy supported by many voters to reduce, or gain control over, immigration flows. Its former prime minister, Theresa May, will be remembered in part for her shoddy treatment of the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants who were asked to prove their citizenship decades after making Britain their home. And Meghan Markle’s decision to leave has prompted introspection in some quarters and defensiveness in others.

在英国，很少有话题比移民和种族问题更受人关注。下周，英国将最终脱离欧盟，许多选民支持这一政策，以减少或控制移民流动。英国前首相特蕾莎·梅(Theresa May)将被人们铭记，部分原因是她对待温德拉什河区域那一代加勒比移民的恶劣态度。这些移民在英国定居数十年后，才被要求证实自己的公民身份。梅根·马克尔(Meghan Markle)离开的决定引发了一些人的反思，也引发了另一些人的防范。

On January 20th Oxford University’s Migration Observatory added some rare crunch to the discussion, with an analysis of data from the European Social Survey. Marina Fernandez-Reino, a researcher, found that migrants were slightly less likely to say they had been discriminated against in Britain than the average reported by their peers in 14 other European countries. But their children were much more likely to feel such discrimination: 32% of second-generation migrants encountered it, compared with 16% of their parents. The same pattern holds in other countries, but the disparity is much greater in Britain.

1月20日，牛津大学的移民观察站对欧洲社会调查的数据进行了分析，为讨论增添了一些罕见的困难。研究人员玛丽娜·费尔南德斯-雷纳发现，与其他14个欧洲国家的同龄人相比，移民者称自己在英国受到歧视的可能性略低。但他们的孩子更有可能感受到这种歧视:32%的第二代移民遭遇了这种歧视，而他们的父母只有16%。同样的模式在其他国家也存在，但在英国的差异要大得多。

词汇

 crunch【the crunch】/( 非正式 ) an important and often unpleasant situation or piece of information 紧要关头；困境；症结；令人不快的重要消息

It is possible that ethnic minorities do indeed face higher rates of discrimination in Britain than elsewhere. An experiment by the academics Valentina Di Stasio and Anthony Heath, published last year, found that fictitious job-seekers with minority backgrounds had to apply for 60% more jobs to get the same number of interviews as Britons with names not traditionally associated with minorities. Researchers found a similar pattern in Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway, too, but in each case the discrepancy between the two groups was smaller than in Britain. “Discrimination in Britain is remarkably high,” says Ms Di Stasio, of Utrecht University. She says Britain ought to perform better than its neighbours since it has a long history of mass migration and a relatively flexible labour market, which might be expected to reduce the disincentive for employers to take a perceived hiring risk. For half a century, studies have found similar prejudice against potential employees with Pakistani or Caribbean roots.

在英国，少数民族确实有可能比其他地方面临更高的歧视率。学者瓦伦蒂娜•迪•斯塔西奥(Valentina Di Stasio)和安东尼•希思(Anthony Heath)去年发表的一项实验发现，虚构的少数族裔求职者必须多申请60%的工作，才能获得与那些名字传统上与少数族裔无关的英国人同样多的面试机会。研究人员在西班牙、德国、荷兰和挪威也发现了类似的情况，但这两个群体（普通人和少数族裔）之间的差异都比英国要小。乌得勒支大学的迪•斯塔西奥表示:“英国的歧视现象非常严重。”她表示，英国应该比邻国表现得更好，因为英国有着长期的大规模移民历史，而且劳动力市场相对灵活，这可能会降低雇主在招聘方面的积极性。半个世纪以来，研究发现，人们对有巴基斯坦或加勒比海血统的潜在雇员抱有类似的偏见。

词汇

ethnic minorities/少数民族；少数族裔

fictitious/虚构的；假想的；编造的

Yet other evidence suggests minorities fare better in Britain than elsewhere in Europe. For instance, about 20% of Britain’s black population report racial harassment in the past five years, the second-lowest rate of 12 EU countries surveyed in 2016. That figure was 32% in France and 48% in Germany. The same report found a smaller disparity in labour-market participation rates than in most other countries.

然而，其他证据表明，英国的少数族裔比欧洲其他地方的少数族裔过得更好。例如，英国约20%的黑人在过去五年中遭受过种族骚扰，这在2016年接受调查的12个欧盟国家中排名倒数第二。法国和德国的这一比例分别为32%和48%。同一份报告还发现，与大多数其他国家相比，劳动力市场参与率的差异较小。

词汇

Disparity/不同；不一致；不等

An alternative explanation is that second-generation migrants may be more aware of their rights in Britain. Omar Khan of Runnymede Trust, a racial-equality think-tank, reckons Britain’s relatively large ethnic minority population brings such issues to the forefront. “There are more people within your in-group who are willing and able to talk about it,” he says.

另一种解释是，第二代移民可能更清楚自己在英国的权利。种族平等智库——【兰尼米德信托】的Omar Khan认为，英国相对较多的少数民族人口将这些问题推到了风口上。他说:“在你的团队中，有更多的人愿意并且能够谈论它。”

A paper by Conrad Ziller in 2014 found an association between the strength of a country’s anti-discrimination policies and its citizens’ knowledge of their rights. Sweden was the only European country to rank higher than Britain on both measures. Britain has had anti-racism laws since the 1960s, which are also tougher than elsewhere. “In some countries ethnicity and race are less discussed and people are less aware of [the issues],” says Ms Fernandez-Reino. In Britain “you might be more likely to see inequalities through the lens of discrimination.” Thus the debate generated by Ms Markle’s exit may itself generate greater awareness of future discrimination.

康拉德•齐勒(Conrad Ziller) 2014年的一篇论文发现，一个国家的反歧视政策力度与其公民对自身权利的认知存在关联。瑞典是唯一一个在这两项指标上排名都高于英国的欧洲国家。英国自20世纪60年代起就有了反种族主义的法律，这些法律也比其他地方更严厉。费尔南德斯-雷纳表示:“在一些国家，人们很少讨论民族和种族问题，也很少意识到(这些问题)。”在英国，“你可能更容易透过歧视的镜头看到不平等。因此，马克尔离职引发的辩论本身可能会让人们更加意识到未来的歧视。

It is also possible that migrants’ children have higher expectations of their success in Britain than their peers elsewhere. Nine-tenths of British migrants believe they can “get ahead if they work hard”, which could lead to a painful gap between expectations and reality. But even if disillusion is more the result of perception than of reality, it may be impacting migrants’ choices. Britain used to be the preferred destination in Europe for those thinking of moving country, but now it has dropped behind Germany and France.

移民子女在英国取得成功的期望也可能高于其他地方的同龄人。十分之九的英国移民认为他们“只要努力工作就能获得成功”，这可能会导致期望与现实之间的痛苦差距。但即使幻灭更多是感知而非现实的结果，它也可能影响移民的选择。英国曾是那些考虑移居欧洲的人的首选目的地，但现在已经落后于德国和法国。