Despite the suggestive nature of these findings, most previous research on racial and income inequalities between the sexes has not attempted to directly address the additivity hypothesis. Although their empirical results show significant deviations from the characterization of double criminality, researchers often pay little attention to the underlying reasons for the obvious interactions between race and gender, and sometimes even do not comment on them (e.B. Blau and Beller 1992; Darity, Guilkey & Winfrey, 1996; Padavic and Reskin, 2002). Certainly, there are studies that have examined the interactions between gender and race on income, with a focus on causal mechanisms such as human capital and job characteristics (England, Christopher and Reid, 1999; Kilbourne, England and Beron, 1993; McGuire and Reskin, 1993), local economic structure (McCall, 2001) and trends over time (Blau and Beller, 1992; Cotter, Hermsen & Vanneman, 1999). For example, McGuire and Reskin (1993) examine gender and racial differences in the ability to translate labour and human capital into income. They note that black women are the most disadvantaged in both directions, but that this disadvantage is less than the sum of the disadvantages that white women and black men face (compared to white men). While they have provided valuable evidence of intersectionality in the income determination process, none of these previous studies have made racial variation in the gender income gap its explicit purpose. These two alternative practices have an advantage over the gender-centered approach or the race/ethnicity-centered approach by avoiding a strong hypothesis: additivity, which assumes that minority women suffer from two income disadvantages additively, one with femininity and the other with non-whiteness. Thus, there would be no overlap between race and gender, and the total discrimination of minority women compared to white men would simply be the sum of sexual punishment and racial punishment. Deborah King (1988, p. 47) aptly described the additivity hypothesis as a “double danger.” Although few researchers make this assumption explicitly, it is implicitly used when researchers draw conclusions about the “racial gap” or “gender divide” from studies that focus solely on one or the other. In this scenario, the income difference between whites and minority group k is the same for men and women, and the income difference between men and women is the same for whites and for minority group k. This suggests that there is an additive effect of being a minority and being a woman – minority women suffer from the full harm of any status.

This formulation represents the characterization of the “double hazard” assumed in much of the earlier literature. “. a black feminist ideology fundamentally challenges the interstructure of the repression of racism, sexism and classism both in mainstream society and within liberation movements. In the face of multiple dangers, black women define and receive a multiple consciousness essential to our liberation, of which feminist consciousness is an integral part. [9] – Deborah K. King In this study, we confirmed the pervasive intersectionality of race and gender in income determination. It is clear that there is no pure “gender effect” or “race effect” among workers in the United States when it comes to income. Both must be considered at the same time. In addition, we have shown that the statistical interaction between minority status and female status is always positive: in groups that are disadvantaged relative to whites in the income ratio, racial punishment is always lower for women than for men, while for low-income groups, the advantage for women is greater than for men. Conversely, for all minority groups, sexual punishment is less for minority women than for white women. Therefore, the characterization of “double danger” proposed in the previous literature poorly reflects the income of minority women. There is something else that is unique to gender: men and women are often part of the same families to a much greater extent than individuals of different races – whether through marriage, cohabitation, children together, or a combination of these.

The family is fundamental to the structure of gender relations. As has long been recognized in economics and sociology, an adequate explanation of gender inequality in the labour market therefore requires the researcher to go beyond discrimination and productivity-related attributes (i.e., human capital) and take into account the role of the family (Becker, 1973, 1974, 1991; Mincer and Polachek, 1974; many others). The family needs to be taken into account in studies on gender inequality for several reasons. First, because resources are usually pooled among family members, gender income inequality is not necessarily reflected in the unequal economic well-being of married or cohabiting adults.1 That is, the economic and social position of an adult in society is influenced not only by his performance in the labor market, but also by the fact that he is married or a partner with whom he is married or a partner. Second, the traditional division of labour within married couple families has shifted responsibility for household chores and childcare primarily to women (Brines, 1994), resulting in significant barriers to married women`s success in the labour market (Budig and England, 2001; Goldin 1990; Noonan 2001; Waldfogel, 1997). Gender roles within the family are therefore closely linked to gender inequality in the workplace. There is already ample evidence that calls into question the characterization of “double danger.” The additivity hypothesis is problematic because it ignores how the experiences of minority women are unique and are not comparable to those of white women or men of the same race or ethnicity (King, 1988). Although minority women of most ethnicities are clearly disadvantaged, their income is often even higher than could be predicted based solely on their race and gender. Among African Americans, numerous studies have shown that the income of black women is higher than that of white women compared to that of black men compared to that of white men (Blue and Beller 1988, Blue and Beller 1992; Cancio, Evans & Maume, 1996; Carlson and Swartz, 1988; King 1988; Marini, 1989). Although few studies have considered other races and ethnicities (Browne and Misra, 2003), some have found a similar pattern among different Hispanic and/or Asian ethnic groups compared to whites (Carlson and Swartz, 1988; England, Christopher & Reid, 1999; Xie and Goyette, 2004).

Multiple danger is related to the matrix of domination. This term, used by Patricia Hill Collins, refers to how each prejudice intersects and overlaps, only as an inseparable bond that creates an interlocking system of oppression. [6] [7] In the United States, dominance can be seen in institutions such as schools, employment, housing, government, and other social elements. The dominance of the parent group concerns those who are/have been socially oppressed due to factors that have historically brought them disadvantages. The idea of multiple endangerment seeps into the concept of the matrix of domination because it is these multiple factors – sex, race, gender, class, religion and other social/cultural identities – that have historically caused many disadvantages for certain groups of people. [6] As a result, the magnitude of racial variation in the gender income gap has not yet been fully documented and understood. In many studies in sociology and economics, the interactions between race and gender were often evident, but were treated as empirical nuances rather than subjects to be studied. This study represents a systematic attempt to examine racial trends in the gender income gap and derive significant theoretical implications from them. To this end, we explicitly focus our study on the racial variation in the gender pay gap.

Multiple Jeopardy is derived from the term Double Jeopardy, which from a sociological perspective refers to the additional barriers that individuals face when exposed to multiple disadvantages due to their unique nature. When considering the double danger, often only two aspects such as race and gender are emphasized. An example of this would be the rights defended by black women. These individuals are oppressed not only because they are women, but also because they are black. These women are part of a dual system of oppression and are hindered not only by one trait, but by two. On the other hand, the multiple danger is based on the idea that any type of discrimination is multiplicative and that, therefore, the relationship between racism, sexism and classism would rather be presented as “racism multiplied by sexism multiplied by classism”. [1] King uses this equation to argue that the institutional context behind how race, gender, and class are treated in society can create unique types of discrimination that are significantly different from the discrimination associated with each of these factors, so that discrimination experienced by a Black woman, is much more than just the sum of the discrimination that a black man and a white woman would experience. Much of the literature in sociology and economics has been devoted to documenting income differences by gender and race/ethnicity in the United States.