According to an extensive research published by the Financial Times article, the average white household in Britain has a net worth of £282,000. Indian household peaked at £266,000 and the black Caribbean’s are currently at £89,000, while Black Africans and Bangladesh households are at the bottom of the list on £24,000 and £22,000 respectively. So why is this?
Albeit many factors are taken into consideration when such research are done, one glaring fact on the ethnicity stat above is whites and Indians are more business and ownership oriented.
Those at the lowest rung of the research as a collective still abide by the dying tradition of going to school, getting a job, work until you are old, retire on pension and die a pensioner.
There are no quick fixes to closing the wealth gap but changing the mindset to educate posterity, on building businesses and owning assets could be the key.
The research cited age as one of the key factors to the gap. Indians are older than the Bangladesh and African household, which gives them enough time to accumulate wealth.
It was also mentioned that blacks in Britton are more likely to live in social welfare housing, Although the figures does not reflect welfare entitlement ratio.
Historical discrimination was also on the cards. The centuries of using black labour to build white wealth has compounded over time. And when slavery was abolished, blacks (slaves) were not remunerated or compensated unlike the whites (slave masters).
Leaving whites to pass down accumulated wealth down generations, and blacks with nothing to pass down.
Access to capital in a discriminatory sense can also be attributed to the disparity in wealth gaps. One common example is blacks maybe given a line of credit to buy their residential home or few rentals, but you will very rarely find blacks as multi-unit home developers (where the real money is).
One of easiest feats white entrepreneurs seem to possess over any other race is ability to raise funds. Blacks find it the extremely difficult to do. This is also a key factor in bridging the wealth gap, which in all honesty I don’t see happening anytime in the near future.
One study by Warwick Business School found blacks were charged higher interest rates. Other reports found no evidence of explicit discrimination but the higher rates reflected lower savings; supposedly neutral credit decisions, including those made by algorithms, can reinforce bias.