Professor Saglar Bugdaeva argues that ethnic minorities are better able to cope with the economic downturn. Since the researcher herself belongs to minorities and is a Mongolian of Kalmyk origin, her books are based on personal experience. Among her arguments are the difficulties experienced by minorities in immigration. The Professor gives statistics that immigrants are disproportionately represented in a limited number of industries in jobs related to manual labor. Even those of the newly arrived immigrants who received a profession at the home country usually performed work that was not commensurate with their qualifications. Discrimination based on ethnicity is widespread and openly conducted. Some entrepreneurs refuse to hire non-white workers and agree to employ them only in the absence of the necessary number of white workers. Thus, the conditions of existence of ethnic minorities, from the point of view of Saglar Bugdaeva, are always close to an economic downturn, which helps them to adapt better.
Her opponent is Prof. Philip Morris who argues that the economic downturn primarily affects ethnic minorities. The cultural anthropologist explains this phenomenon by the existence of ethnic discrimination in the labor market, but he interprets its impact differently. From the point of view of market networks, immigrants occupy empty niches that are not attractive to the indigenous population. Among them, such areas as retail food and construction work, or gentrification and cleaning of territories prevail. However, during the economic downturn, the local population experiences a shortage of work and also occupies these niches, which practically leaves migrants with no chance to earn money in the conditions of economic downturn. Thus, the professor argues that ethnic minorities are the most vulnerable social group during the economic downturn.