8.1 People in Cornwall receive the lowest wages in the UK. In 1997 average gross weekly earnings for men were 23% lower than the UK average and those of women 18% lower (Pullinger and Pickering, 1998, 31). Full time male wages fell from 84% of the British average in 1981 to just 77% in 1997. For women the drop was even steeper, from 90% to 81% over the same period (Cornwall County Council, 1998). GDP is also lower, so low that that Cornwall now qualifies for EU Objective 1 funding as its GDP per capita is more than 25% below the European Union average. Low wages lead to deprivation, "Cornwall exhibits a different pattern of deprivation than Devon: there appears to be widespread low-level deprivation which was described as extensive rather than intensive" (Payne et.al., 1996, 35). The same study found that the proportion of council tenants receiving housing assistance in Cornwall in 1993/4 was higher than in Greater London (Payne et.al., 41). The authors concluded that "low wages are a highly significant factor in Cornwall’s economic and social difficulties, yet this is not reflected in the government’s assessment of the County’s needs" (Payne et.al., 46).

8.2 While the Cornish economy, with its chronic "job insecurity, under-employment, casual, seasonal and part-time work" (Payne et.al., 42), provides the backdrop to the economic conditions of the Cornish community this does not prove that the Cornish suffer worse conditions than the non-Cornish. But relatively high levels of inequality for rural areas, especially in west Cornwall, show that a major contrast exists between best and worst off groups within Cornwall (Gordon and Forrest, 1995). But do these inequalities have an ethnic dimension?

8.3 There is evidence that class differences within Cornwall mirror ethnic differences. In 1989 it was found that the average income of Cornish households in selected rural parishes was £9,000, compared with £10,500 for non-Cornish households. Households with a Cornish-born head were only half as likely to be in the top wage bracket as households with non-Cornish heads. The report concluded that "not only do local people tend to have traditional jobs, but they have traditional wages too… there is a considerable contrast between in-migrants who are more likely to have a better paid job in the tertiary sector which involves sometimes long-distance commuting; and the Cornish, who tend towards having more primary sector jobs, entailing lower income and a workplace close to home" (Griffiths, 1989, 109, 114).

8.4 There is clearly an economic cost to be paid when choosing to stay in Cornwall, as "out-migrants do better economically than those who remain in Cornwall" (Williams and Harrison, 1995, 190). And amongst those who live in Cornwall, recent in-migrants experience less of this cost than long-term residents. Low income has other effects. For example, in August 1993 the Times stated that "chronic ill-health is linked closely with poverty… in the North, inner cities and Cornwall, over a quarter of households contain at least one person suffering from long term illness" (cited in Payton, 1993, 233). The low income of Cornish households would appear to make them even more vulnerable to problems of chronic ill-health. But the Area Health Authority does not monitor the health of the Cornish ethnic group. "The resultant lack of information on health databases means that it is impossible for the National Health Service in Cornwall to map the incidence of conditions in relation to their impact on different ethnic groups. This prejudices equal access by Cornish people to preventative initiatives, preventing the NHS from developing practices and treatments that are culturally sensitive and more effective" (communication from Bert Biscoe).

8.5 The lower income suffered by the Cornish community reflects a cultural division of labour in Cornwall. This was asserted as early as 1973 when Professor Charles Thomas claimed that "medical and hospital services, all the various Government departments, County Hall and the local government network are … largely in English hands" (Thomas, 1973, 11-12). More recently, empirical surveys have confirmed this widely held assumption. In-migrants to Cornwall have been found to be of a higher social class after migration than the local population. In 1982/3 a survey of 1,800 households in seven electoral wards in west and mid Cornwall found a clear difference in the occupational class profile of ‘locals’ and ‘migrants’.

Social class of locals and migrants, 1982/3 (based on Perry et.al., 1986, 88)

	Locals	Migrants
Social classes 1 and 2	26.4%	49.0%
Social class 3	52.3%	41.0%
Social classes 4 and 5	21.3%	10.0%

Migrants were more likely to be in the professional and non-manual classes whereas locals were twice as likely to be in manual occupations. These findings were replicated in a study of 1981 and 1991 Census data. In-migrants to Cornwall were more likely to have professional and non-manual occupations while non-migrants were more likely to be working in manual jobs (Williams et.al., 1995, 46-47). Similarly, a study of rural parishes in 1989 showed that the Cornish were three times as likely to work in the primary sector and twice as likely to be in the secondary sector than the non-Cornish (Griffiths, 1989, 108). More recent data collected by the Cornwall Rural Community Council in the 1990s also suggest that the "Cornish are under-represented amongst the professional/managerial group, but over-represented in lower paid categories such as agriculture/fishing, the retail trade and secretarial/clerical" (Wills, 1999).

8.6 In an economy dominated by small businesses and the public sector (health, local government) this division of labour means that those in a position to hire and fire in Cornwall are rarely Cornish. Furthermore, in the small business sector, in 1989 less than 30% of the owners of small businesses surveyed were Cornish (Griffiths, 1989, 234). This proportion was especially low in tourism businesses, where only one in six was Cornish, a finding that supported earlier studies. In Looe in 1986 it was discovered that only 16% of tourist businesses were owned by Cornish people; in 1989 it was reported that "less than one third of the (tourism) entrepreneurs had been born in Cornwall" (Hennessy et.al., 1986, 16; Williams et.al., 1989, 1646). The only exceptions to the pattern, where Cornish ownership is still widespread, are farming, fishing and building.

8.7 In such a division of labour it is important that interviewers show sensitivity and understanding when interviewing Cornish applicants, competing for a limited number of non-manual jobs against large numbers of applicants attracted by tourist and romantic images of Cornwall. It has been claimed that specific qualifications are often sought which cannot be obtained locally… Assumptions are made about Cornish job seekers. Mobility is equated with ambition and initiative, a factor which fails to take account of the special circumstances of Cornwall. The determination to stay in Cornwall after generations of emigration and commitment to the community are not seen as worthy of merit or indicative of resolve, dedication and different ambitions and aspirations. Instead Cornish candidates are assumed to lack drive and have an insular outlook (Kennedy, 1993, 21). Whether this is the case demands detailed ethnographic research and qualitative data on the assumptions of interviewing panels and those in high status jobs in Cornwall. What is clear, however, is that structurally, the Cornish only rarely occupy powerful and prestigious locations in the Cornish economy.

8.8 Finally, in terms of access to education, despite high rates of post-16 education in Cornwall, there is a distinction between the Cornish and the non-Cornish populations in terms of higher education experience. In the early 1980s a survey found that the non-Cornish were more than twice as likely to have continued full time education after the age of 19 than the Cornish. This was the case in all of the seven wards the project investigated (Perry, 1986, 87). This pattern was the result of selective out-migration of Cornish graduates, unable to obtain work in Cornwall, combining with the class and status character of in-migrants, skewed towards the better off and more highly educated.

Summary

	The Cornish ethnic group has a lower income than the average for Cornwall, already low by UK and European standards.
	This is reflected in higher levels of deprivation.
	There is a cultural division of labour in Cornwall whereby the Cornish are under-represented in high status and over-represented in low status jobs.

Related Articles of the Convention are:
Article3.1 Every person belonging to a national minority shall have the right freely to choose to be treated or not to be treated as such and no disadvantage shall result from this choice or from the exercise of the rights which are connected to that choice.

Article 4.2 The Parties undertake to adopt, where necessary, adequate measures in order to promote, in all areas of economic, social, political and cultural life, full and effective equality between persons belonging to a national minority and those belonging to the majority. In this respect, they shall take due account of the specific conditions of the persons belonging to national minorities.