The Magnifying Effect of Privilege: Earnings Inequalities at the Intersection of Gender, Race, and Nativity

Abstract

Feminist concerns about the epistemological problems of quantitative methods have resulted in an underdevelopment of quantitative approaches that could contribute to existing intersectional theory. Further, feminist scholars commonly consider the effects of gender as it intersects with race or class, but relatively little of this research has included nativity (being either an immigrant or native-born to a society). This article addresses these shortcomings by examining patterns of earnings inequality at the intersection of gender, race, and nativity, comparing cohorts of African-born Black and white immigrants to their US-born counterparts over multiple time-points. Further, the depressive effects of gender are large enough so that while there are differences in women's earnings across race and nativity, nearly all groups of men still earn more than nearly all groups of women. The article's results demonstrate that privilege has a magnifying effect, with the advantages conferred from one privileged status increasing the effects of other privilege statuses, which become larger over time. These findings contribute to how feminists understand privileges and oppressions emerging from the intersections of gender with other social statuses, and how such intersections shape economic inequality. Keywords: African migrants / earnings gap / economic inequality / feminist research methods / gender inequality / intersectionalityIn this article, we argue for the utility of quantitative analysis for understanding the intersecting effects of gender, race, and immigration status, or nativity (that is, whether someone is native born or foreign born), on earnings. Most 86 · Feminist Formations 26.2 intersectional analyses utilize qualitative methodologies, but we propose that it is also useful to use quantitative methods to understand intersecting relationships. In doing so, we argue that scholars can better compare differently oppressed or privileged groups by identifying macro-level patterns of inequality among groups. Specifically, our research shows that one privileged status magnifies the positive economic outcomes of other privilege statuses. Thus, greater differences in earnings can be seen in the intersecting status of privileged groups compared to oppressed groups. Because of this, intersecting statuses produce greater differences in earnings among different groups of men than among groups of women.This study fills some important gaps in the literature on gender and intersectionality. First, little research exists on the intersecting effects of gender, race, and nativity, so we know relatively little about how these statuses work in tandem with one another to shape economic opportunities for migrant women and men. Second, gender is often treated as a control variable in studies of immigrant earnings, without adequate explanation of how gender organizes labormarket outcomes (Curran, Shafer, Donato, and Garip 2006;Hondagneu-Sotelo 2003; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Cranford 2006;Nawyn 2010; Nawyn, Reosti, and Gjokaj 2009). Finall...

Feminized Intergenerational Mobility Without Assimilation? Post-1965 U.S. Immigrants and the Gender Revolution

“…However, results are mixed as to what effect gender has compared with race/ethnicity or nativity. Many scholars have found that gender disparities in earnings are consistently larger than racial or nativity disparities (Avalos 1996;Greenman and Xie 2008;Nawyn and Gjokaj 2014;Sullivan 1984). However, in her study of earnings inequality for highly skilled immigrant women, Lopez (2012) found that nativity status explains more of the earnings gap with U.S.-born men than does gender status.…”

Intersectionality as a Regulative Ideal

“…Recall also Nawyn and Gjokaj's (2014) argument that there is a magnifying effect of privilege for members of multiple advantaged groups. Nevertheless, we suspect that that the questions we raise and the solutions we propose (see Footnote 27) may be adapted to address Alexander-Floyd's interpretation of intersectionality.…”

Distributional Differences and the Native American Gender Wage Gap

“…A fundamental premise in both these approaches is that an individual's identity is "more than a dummy variable" and treating it solely as an independent variable recognizes its influence on social, economic and cultural forces, and institutions, but ignores the determination of each of these factors on an individual's identity (Figart 1997). Much of this work has verified discrimination contains both a gender and racial component that cannot be decoupled because perceptions of race and gender are interdependent (Harnois and Ifatunji 2011;Ifatunji and Harnois 2016;Nawyn and Gjokaj 2014) yet this has left the experiences of American Indian and Alaska Native 1 (AIAN) women unexplored. We seek to fill this gap in the literature by documenting differences in the average and distribution of hourly earnings between AIAN women and men associated with identifying as AIAN alone or in 1 We use American Indian, Alaska Native, Native American and Indians interchangeably to refer to individuals who maintain a tribal affiliation or community attachment to any of the original peoples of North America.…”