New Research Says Poverty More Likely to Create Mistrust Than Race

Monday, 29 November 2010 16:49

Research from the University of Southampton has found that poverty and gross inequality are six times more likely than ethnic diversity to cause British people to be suspicious of their neighbours, “repudiating the argument that multicultural societies make people uneasy and less trusting of strangers.”

From the Guardian:

“Using government surveys of more than 25,000 individuals in 4,000 neighbourhoods, researchers from the University of Southampton said there was ‘no evidence’ that levels of trust and co-operation were highest in the most ‘homogenous’ neighbourhoods. Instead, people living in deprived areas were the most suspicious of those who don't look like them – and those that do.”

“’Basically it is poverty not race that makes people uneasy and not trust each other,’ said Patrick Sturgis, of the National Centre for Research Methods at Southampton University. ‘If it were somehow possible to make every neighbourhood in Britain completely ethnically homogeneous, it would have a barely perceptible impact on the extent to which the British trust people in their neighbourhoods.’”

“Sturgis said whittling away at economic inequalities that lead to isolation and mistrust was the answer to reviving community spirit in much of Britain. The study also shows that Britain's crisis in "social capital" – leading to less volunteering, fewer close friends, lower rates of happiness and perceived quality of life – has roots in poverty.”

“’We need to pump money into these places rather than argue it is multiculturalism which is causing communities to fall apart. There's no evidence for it.’”

Multiculturalism and diversity have faced a sustained attack, with most of the focus of the debate centred on the Muslim community’s supposed failure to integrate in to wider society.

In 2008, there were talks of no-go areas for non-Muslims and multicultural policies having bred “separate communities, continuing to communicate in their own languages and having minimum need for building healthy relationships with the majority.”

The perceived segregation and division caused by multiculturalism became an excuse to force minorities to integrate – a view that still pervades the discourse of the right wing press. The issue of whether multiculturalism was dividing communities found expression even in the views of mainstream government ministers such as former home secretaries, David Blunkett and John Reid, and former communities secretary, Ruth Kelly.

Poverty is a much harder political issue to solve than is blaming one community for the woes of society. Perhaps now both politicians and the media will take a long-term view of community cohesion, which will take time and patience, rather than playing in to populist rhetoric that singles out minority groups and ultimately leaves trust demolished between our communities.

The research is due to be published in the British Journal of Political Science.

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