Analyzing Intersectionality of Inequalities in Employment

1
Analyzing Intersectionality of Inequalities in
Employment

• Wendy Sigle-Rushton and Diane Perrons
• Department of Social Policy
• Gender Institute
• London School of Economics and Political Science
• GENDER, CLASS, EMPLOYMENT AND FAMILY
• INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
• City University, London, March 27-28th, 2008

2
Motivation

• Context globalisation and rising inequality
• inequality and gender inequality
• gender inequality and other forms of difference
• Theory feminist theorising of complex
  differences
• Analysis how do we conceptualise difference in
  empirical work?
• adopting the inter-categorical approach

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Globalisation (Increasing Trade) and Economic
Restructuring (Changing Composition of Employment)
4
Intersectionality

• Feminist critique of using gender, class, or
  ethnicity as single analytic categories.
• Different social divisions are mutually modifying
  and reinforcing.
• How to analyse forms of difference (that) are
  lived relationally ? (Moore 1994)

5
Methodological Approaches

• McCalls (2005) typology
• Anti-categorical
• Intra-categorical
• Inter-categorical

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Methodological Approaches

• McCalls (2005) typology
• Anti-categorical desconstructionist, draws on
  post-modern and post-structural theories
• Intra-categorical
• Inter-categorical

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Methodological Approaches

• McCalls (2005) typology
• Anti-categorical
• Intra-categorical focuses on differences that
  cut across one particular category of interest
• Inter-categorical

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Methodological Approaches

• McCalls (2005) typology
• Anti-categorical
• Intra-categorical
• Inter-categorical focuses on how analytically
  defined categorical difference intersects in
  practice

9
Methodological Approaches

• McCalls (2005) typology
• Anti-categorical most common
• Intra-categorical qualitative research
• Inter-categorical most amenable to quantitative
  analyses

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Applying the Inter-Categorical Approach

• Applying a more inter-sectional approach
• requires a large number of observations
• can result in extremely complex tables of results
• can uncover important differences that would be
  masked by more traditional models
• Various possibilities
• cluster analysis
• classification trees
• Look back to classical demography
• Make the most of existing samples
• pseudo-cohorts

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Analysing Intersectionality in UK Labour Market

• Data
• repeated cross sections from spring quarters LFS
• sample women aged 19-40
• dependent variable employed at the time of
  interview
• controls
• year of interview
• age in years (dummies, 19 reference category)
• ethnic group
• partnership status
• education
• number of children born (1-4)
• time since birth of last 4 children and time
  squared
• Method
• logit models

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Simulation 1 Predicted Probability of Employment
for Low Educated Women, Aged 25 in 1993 Who
Partner At Age 28 and Have One Child At Age 30
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Simulation 2 Predicted Probability of Employment
for Highly Educated Women, Aged 25 in 1993 Who
Partner At Age 28 and Have One Child At Age 30
and a Second Child at Age 33, Selected Ethnic
Groups
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Making Sense of/Contextualising Empirical
Findings
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Summary

• Issues raised in the literature on
  intersectionality
• have travelled but in selective ways
• have not had a great influence on quantitative
  methodologies
• Applying a more inter-sectional approach
• allows description and documentation of
  differences as they are lived
• provides a basis for wider association (e.g.
  McCall geographical association)
• can run the risk of attributing causality to
  identity so needs to be contextualised and
  linked to other explanations

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References to the EOC studies

• Sigle-Ruston and Perrons D (2006) Employment
  transitions over the lifecycle a statistical
  analysis
• http//83.137.212.42/sitearchive/eoc/PDF/WP46_Empl
  oyment_transitions.pdf?page20505
• Perrons D and Sigle-Ruston W (2006) Employment
  transitions over the lifecycle a literature
  review
• http//83.137.212.42/sitearchive/eoc/PDF/WP47_Emp
  loyment_transitions.pdf?page20505
• The background to and some further information
  about the empirical analysis can be found in the
  above reports.