Multiple identities, multiple-discrimination: A critical review

The concept of multiple-discrimination, particularly as found in the labor market, is fast becoming common parlance among policy-making circles. Understanding discrimination is no longer about uncovering simple and dualistic links between two social groups: it is increasingly apparent that the nature and dynamics of discrimination are complex because the multiple positions occupied by people are shaped by numerous social attributes. Economic theory and economists, however, have hardly addressed issues of multiple-discrimination or intersectional discrimination. By surveying the economics literature, from orthodoxy to heterodoxy, this article shows how economists are lagging behind legal and human rights theorists in tackling the issue. A couple of contemporary cases from the UK, those of Aishah Azmi and Nadia Eweida, are used in this largely critical literature survey to show the value of utilizing a multiple-discrimination framework to acknowledge the complexities and nuances of labor market reality.