Examining Race in Jamaica: How Racial Category and Skin Color Structure Social Inequality
Jamaica’s social inequality is primarily held to be class-based due, in part, to the country’s perceived ethno-racial homogeneity and to the particularities of its colonial past. However, whether “race” also systemically shapes inequality in Jamaica remains understudied. To address this empirical la...
| Autor principal: | |
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| Tipo de documento: | Electrónico Artículo |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
2020
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| En: |
Race and social problems
Año: 2020, Volumen: 12, Número: 4, Páginas: 300-312 |
| Acceso en línea: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Journals Online & Print: | Gargar...
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| Verificar disponibilidad: | HBZ Gateway |
| Palabras clave: |
| Sumario: | Jamaica’s social inequality is primarily held to be class-based due, in part, to the country’s perceived ethno-racial homogeneity and to the particularities of its colonial past. However, whether “race” also systemically shapes inequality in Jamaica remains understudied. To address this empirical lacuna, I examine the effects of two measures of race—categorical race and skin color—on years of schooling and household amenities using data from the 2014 AmericasBarometer social survey. I find that access to household amenities and years of schooling are starkly structured by racial category, and even more robustly by skin color, across all dimensions. The findings challenge long-held assumptions that marginalize race with regards to social inequality in Jamaica. They also suggest the importance of a multidimensional approach to studying the effects of race for understanding stratification dynamics in Jamaica. As an English-speaking, majority Afro-descent society in the Caribbean, the study’s findings add a unique country case for comparison to Latin America and may also speak to other similar contexts in the region. |
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| ISSN: | 1867-1756 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s12552-020-09287-z |