Coronavirus crisis could aggravate Britain’s existing inequalities: Think tank

The coronavirus crisis that has mainly impacted the low-end workers and ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom has exposed many old and deep inequalities, according to a Britain-based think tank. The Institute for Fiscal Studies in its latest report published on June 11 said most people in the bottom tenth of the earnings distribution are in sectors that have been forced to shut down, and 80 per cent are either in a shut-down sector or are unlikely to be able to work from home, compared to only a quarter of highest-earning tenth.

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The report said that British people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent are most affected apart from black ethnicity people. As per the report, 30 per cent of low-income households said that they wouldn't survive a month if they were to lose their job, while high-end income households have been forced to save money because there is not much to do at this time of crisis. Most of the activities that high-end households used to do before the shut down is what provided livelihoods to these low-income households. 

Read: UK Scientist: Week Earlier Lockdown Could Have Halved Deaths

Socio-economic divide

"School shutdowns are likely to accentuate the socio-economic divide in educational attainment. The schools that children from better-off families attend are more likely to provide learning activities that involve active engagement between teachers and students than the schools attended by children from the most deprived families. These activities are not only expected to be best suited for supporting home learning; they are also less reliant on parental time and ability to be completed," the report said. 

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