14 UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex
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Daniel Dorling
Abstract
Ethnic minorities and women are no longer underrepresented in UK medical schools, but lower socioeconomic groups still are. Given the strong political pressure on higher education institutions to develop “widening participation” programmes3,4, a valid quantitative index of the impact of such programmes is needed urgently. Such an index should be derived from robust and accessible primary data, reflect the impact of multiple independent variables in different population subgroups, allow comparisons across institutions and over time, and be readily understandable by non-statisticians. Statistics on the entry profile of UK medical schools are usually expressed as the selection ratio (the proportion of admissions to applications). We propose that the standardised admission ratio (see box), which expresses the number of pupils admitted to medical school as a proportion of the number who would do so if places were allocated equitably across all socioeconomic and ethnic groups and equally by sex, should become the standard measure of widening participation. It would not, of course, be an index of discrimination at selection stage.
See extra table at end of this chapter for the detailed results of applying this formula to 82 population subgroups in the UK.
We calculated standardised admission ratios using data from the Universities’ Central Admissions Service database (www.ucas.ac.uk/figures) on UK medical school admissions from 1996 to 2000 (the last year for which full figures are so far available, and the last year in which socioeconomic status was measured in traditional social class bands) as a numerator and the labour force survey (www.statistics.gov.uk) as a denominator (see Figure 1 above).
Abstract
Ethnic minorities and women are no longer underrepresented in UK medical schools, but lower socioeconomic groups still are. Given the strong political pressure on higher education institutions to develop “widening participation” programmes3,4, a valid quantitative index of the impact of such programmes is needed urgently. Such an index should be derived from robust and accessible primary data, reflect the impact of multiple independent variables in different population subgroups, allow comparisons across institutions and over time, and be readily understandable by non-statisticians. Statistics on the entry profile of UK medical schools are usually expressed as the selection ratio (the proportion of admissions to applications). We propose that the standardised admission ratio (see box), which expresses the number of pupils admitted to medical school as a proportion of the number who would do so if places were allocated equitably across all socioeconomic and ethnic groups and equally by sex, should become the standard measure of widening participation. It would not, of course, be an index of discrimination at selection stage.
See extra table at end of this chapter for the detailed results of applying this formula to 82 population subgroups in the UK.
We calculated standardised admission ratios using data from the Universities’ Central Admissions Service database (www.ucas.ac.uk/figures) on UK medical school admissions from 1996 to 2000 (the last year for which full figures are so far available, and the last year in which socioeconomic status was measured in traditional social class bands) as a numerator and the labour force survey (www.statistics.gov.uk) as a denominator (see Figure 1 above).
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Sources of extracts vii
- Foreword xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Inequality and poverty
- Prime suspect: murder in Britain 13
- The dream that turned pear-shaped 31
- The soul searching within New Labour 41
- Unequal Britain 49
- Axing the child poverty measure is wrong 57
-
Injustice and ideology
- Brutal budget to entrench inequality 63
- New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued? 65
- All in the mind? Why social inequalities persist 83
- Glass conflict: David Cameron’s claim to understand poverty 93
- Clearing the poor away 97
-
Race and identity
- Ghettos in the sky 103
- Worlds apart: how inequality breeds fear and prejudice in Britain 111
- How much evidence do you need? Ethnicity, harm and crime 115
- UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex 121
- Race and the repercussions of recession 125
-
Education and hierarchy
- What’s it to do with the price of fish? 133
- Little progress towards a fairer education system 139
- One of Labour’s great successes 147
- Do three points make a trend? 149
- Educational mobility, England and Germany 155
- Cash and the not so classless society 159
- Britain must close the great pay divide 165
- Raising equality in access to higher education 170
-
Elitism and geneticism
- The Darwins and the Cecils are only empty vessels 189
- The Fabian essay: the myth of inherited inequality 193
- The return to elitism in education 199
- The super-rich are still soaring away 209
-
Mobility and employment
- The trouble with moving upmarket 217
- Britain – split and divided by inequality 221
- London and the English desert: the grain of truth in a stereotype 225
- Are the times changing back? 237
- Unemployment and health 243
-
Bricks and mortar
- Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK 249
- Daylight robbery: there’s no shortage of housing 251
- The influence of selective migration patterns 255
- The geography of poverty, inequality and wealth in the UK and abroad 263
- All connected? Geographies of race, death, wealth, votes and births 291
-
Well-being and misery
- Against the organization of misery? The Marmot Review of Health Inequalities 299
- Inequality kills 307
- The geography of social inequality and health 311
- The cartographer’s mad project 327
- The fading of the dream: widening inequalities in life expectancy in America 333
- The importance of circumstance 339
-
Advocacy and action
- Mean machine: how structural inequality makes social inequality seem natural 347
- Policing the borders of crime: who decides research? 351
- Learning the hard way 357
- When the social divide deepens 363
- Ending the scandal of complacency 365
- Our grandchildren will wonder why we were addicted to social inequality 369
- Mind the gap: New Labour’s legacy on child poverty 373
- Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms 379
- If I were king 385
- Bibliography 387
- Index 389
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Sources of extracts vii
- Foreword xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Inequality and poverty
- Prime suspect: murder in Britain 13
- The dream that turned pear-shaped 31
- The soul searching within New Labour 41
- Unequal Britain 49
- Axing the child poverty measure is wrong 57
-
Injustice and ideology
- Brutal budget to entrench inequality 63
- New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued? 65
- All in the mind? Why social inequalities persist 83
- Glass conflict: David Cameron’s claim to understand poverty 93
- Clearing the poor away 97
-
Race and identity
- Ghettos in the sky 103
- Worlds apart: how inequality breeds fear and prejudice in Britain 111
- How much evidence do you need? Ethnicity, harm and crime 115
- UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex 121
- Race and the repercussions of recession 125
-
Education and hierarchy
- What’s it to do with the price of fish? 133
- Little progress towards a fairer education system 139
- One of Labour’s great successes 147
- Do three points make a trend? 149
- Educational mobility, England and Germany 155
- Cash and the not so classless society 159
- Britain must close the great pay divide 165
- Raising equality in access to higher education 170
-
Elitism and geneticism
- The Darwins and the Cecils are only empty vessels 189
- The Fabian essay: the myth of inherited inequality 193
- The return to elitism in education 199
- The super-rich are still soaring away 209
-
Mobility and employment
- The trouble with moving upmarket 217
- Britain – split and divided by inequality 221
- London and the English desert: the grain of truth in a stereotype 225
- Are the times changing back? 237
- Unemployment and health 243
-
Bricks and mortar
- Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK 249
- Daylight robbery: there’s no shortage of housing 251
- The influence of selective migration patterns 255
- The geography of poverty, inequality and wealth in the UK and abroad 263
- All connected? Geographies of race, death, wealth, votes and births 291
-
Well-being and misery
- Against the organization of misery? The Marmot Review of Health Inequalities 299
- Inequality kills 307
- The geography of social inequality and health 311
- The cartographer’s mad project 327
- The fading of the dream: widening inequalities in life expectancy in America 333
- The importance of circumstance 339
-
Advocacy and action
- Mean machine: how structural inequality makes social inequality seem natural 347
- Policing the borders of crime: who decides research? 351
- Learning the hard way 357
- When the social divide deepens 363
- Ending the scandal of complacency 365
- Our grandchildren will wonder why we were addicted to social inequality 369
- Mind the gap: New Labour’s legacy on child poverty 373
- Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms 379
- If I were king 385
- Bibliography 387
- Index 389
