The persistence and pervasiveness of racial discrimination in Great Britain: capturing experienced racial discrimination over time and life domains

Racism has been long-established to be associated with social, economic, and health inequalities for minoritised ethnic groups, but existent evidence likely under-estimates the extent and persistence of experienced racial discrimination due to limitations in the measurement of timing and domains of life where racial discrimination occurs. We analysed data captured by a novel retrospective measure of life course experiences of racial discrimination that measures the extent, persistence, and accumulation of experienced racial discrimination over the life course. Our findings show higher levels of experienced racial discrimination than previously reported, and uncover the pervasiveness of racial discrimination across life domains. By asking about different time periods we find that people who report experiencing racial discrimination are likely to have had these experiences in multiple domains, and multiple time periods, documenting the insidiousness of racial discrimination over time and domains of people’s lives.