ABSTRACT
We concluded chapter 7 by questioning what would be the policy consequences of a discovery that the under-representation of some minority ethnic groups in the nursing and midwifery workforce turned out to be a consequence of conscious occupational choice-making on the part of those involved. Whatever caveats we enter about the relationship between choice and constraint, and however much we acknowledge the power of exclusionary processes and negative experiences, this must remain at least a theoretical possibility. To presume otherwise is, in fact, to fall victim to a new variant of the assimilationist assumptions which have long permeated health policy in the U.K. Given that the association of equity with proportional representation is close to being an orthodoxy in many equal opportunities circles, this may seem a dramatic claim. In point of fact, however, it is merely to highlight one of a number of persistent dilemmas in the history of equal opportunities theory and practice.
