Full Citation
Title: Intersectional Inequality in Education
Citation Type: Conference Paper
Publication Year: 2022
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: Intersectional inequality-the notion that disparities run along the lines of combinations of salient social groups such as gender or ethnicity-has become an increasingly prominent concept in the social sciences. Yet, because of the number of possible combinations of groups, embedding intersectionality into the measurement of inequality has proven to be analytically complex. Hence there is little empirical research applying an intersectional framework to measure inequality. We incorporate intersectionality into the measurement of between-group inequalities in educational attainment using DHS data from 39 low-and middle-income countries and the United States. Using schooling ratios between lower and higher educated groups as an inequality measure, we show that the intersectional perspective unveils a lot of inequality that remains masked if gender and ethnicity are considered in isolation. Generally, intersectional inequality in education is driven more by ethnic inequality than gender inequality. Further, we develop a novel metric to evaluate the relevance of intersectionality compared to standard approaches of between-group inequality measurement. The new metric, Surplus Intersectionality, reveals substantial heterogeneity between countries in terms of how much intersectionality is present. While gender, ethnic and intersecting inequality all seem to be driven mainly by a country's average education level, this is not the case for Surplus Intersectionality.
Url: https://iariw.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Meili-et-al-IARIW-2022.pdf
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Meili, Dario; Günther, Isabel; Harttgen, Kenneth
Conference Name: IARIW
Publisher Location:
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Education, Poverty and Welfare
Countries: