Intersecting Inequalities: Uncovering Disparities in Education and the Labor Market

Author(s) : Dario Meili

Source : https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/handle/20.500.11850/666881

Abstract:

“In the past decades, the world has witnessed a significant decline in global poverty and a narrowing of global inequality in income, education, health, and other well-being factors. However, this positive trend is mostly driven by decreasing between-country inequality and stands in contrast with the rise of inequalities within many countries. A key contributor to these within-country disparities is persistent inequality between social groups, such as gender, ethnicity, and migration status. Existing research tends to examine these group-based inequalities in isolation, yet this approach disregards the reality that individuals often have multiple overlapping identities, leading to the potential for compounding disadvantages. Intersectionality, which emerged as a theoretical framework from the humanities, recognizes that the overlapping of social identities can amplify inequalities in ways that are not fully captured when these identities are considered separately. However, the economic literature has so far been reluctant to adopt intersectionality as a framework to quantitatively analyze inequalities.”