Equity, diversity & inclusion

Introduction

This section provides resources for relating career guidance work to outcomes beyond individuals. This page covers discussions that relate career guidance to Equity(or Equality), Diversity and Inclusion, showing examples for different challenges and protected groups.

Studies and discussions are included that support in "making the case" for careers for this agenda, and then some specific case study examples of studies that have shown examples of interventions where the outcomes support goals of EDI. There are different mechanisms by which these are achieved.

This page provides references for the landscape and contextual issues, case studies into practice, relevant research-active institutions, relevant publications, and data sources.

Key points

Numerous studies have showed the nature and extent of different forms of inequality between groups, in the UK and wider afield, as well as between more and less prosperous members of society:

• In their review in 2022, the IFS found that earnings inequality is considerably higher in the UK than it was 40 years ago. Moreover, as the economy has shown longer term trends towards stagnation, worker power has fallen in the light of rapid union decline and increased employer power in pay determination.  (Giupponi, G., Machin, S., 2022)

• Racial differences remain strong between some groups in terms of economic outcomes e.g. 46% of ethnic minority children are living in poverty in Britain (Runnymede Trust)

• Career experiences and perceptions of opportunities are lower for racial/ethnic minorities than majority groups -  between 20% and 30% reporting negatively on some major aspects of work (CIPD, 2023)

• Access-to and engagement with career guidance has often been lower for economically and socially disadvantaged groups that would appear to most need it (OECD, 2024)

• For several decades, cultural differences between groups has created recognition for the need for culturally-sensitive counselling approaches - in careers and also other counselling-related professions (e.g. Sultana, 2017).

• Historically, disadvantaged students have received less engagement with employers during their education (Mann  et al, 2017)

• EDI is welcomed across the national employee base, with 2 in 3 British workers saying that workplace EDI is important when job hunting. (YouGov, 2023)

There are a range of literature reviews and studies that demonstrate the positive impact of careers education, for example:

• Career guidance has helped increased educational attainment levels and engagement amongst the lowest performing students, contributing to social mobility (Hanson and Neary, 2020)

• Career guidance can help to reduce absence from school and is associated with increased grades (Hooley et al, 2014)

• Career adaptations have been developed to target tailored situations and groups in education and employment (e.g. Chen et al, 2016)

• Careers related interventions can provide minority group members with support that their employer/institution is unable to provide (Carr, 2019)

• Longitudinal datasets that relate educational attainment and labour market outcomes, coupled with statistical analysis, mean that is possible to identify students during education who are at greater risk of becoming NEET to provide more intense forms of careers support (e.g. Davies, 2018)