The terms 'ethnic minority' hides the diversity between and within Essay

The terms 'ethnic minority' hides the diversity between and within minority ethnic groups. Discuss - Essay Example dress issues of discrimination on racial or ethnic lives have not been able to efficiently iron out details about ethno-religious matters, gender and ethnicity, ethno-politico issues and other such gray areas. Members of these minority groups have had to endure their situation or fight like the black feminists did. This paper aims to discuss an array issues that touch on this issue of differences between and within ethnic minority groups. Looking at self-employement sector in Britain for example the self-employment rate is 14.6 percent for non-whites compared to 12.3 percent for whites. However beneath this statistics are the glaring differences between the groups. The self-employment rate for black Carribeans is 5.8 percent while that for Chinese is 26.6 percent (Kenneth and Drinkwater, 1). Factors that could create these differences would include social support from one’s community to facilitate a self-sustaining economic environment, effects of religion or access to informal sources of capital and manpower from the family ties or members of the ethnic community (Kenneth and Drinkwater, 1). Cultural endowments too determine such kinds of trends since it does determine one’s attitude towards entrepreneurship. It also has a bearing on consumer behaviour and how much of a good is ordered (Rafiq, 46). Some of these consumer behaviours become so pronounced as to qualify some goods being referred to as ethnic goods. When a good number of members of a certain ethnic group live together in one neighbourhood, a protected market scenario arises. The shop owners are able to maintain a monopoly of sorts within the neighbourhood and the members give support by being loyal to these businesses. The shop owners are keener to provide goods and services that meet the memb ers’ preferences. Religious goods are particularly a favourite. So are goods from the ethnic group’s country of origin. Religion is another strong influence. Rafiq, (50-55) argues that in