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OxfordJournals

Stratificationeconomicsandidentityeconomics
SocialSciences

CambridgeJournalofEconomics

Volume39,Issue5

Pp.12151229.

CambridgeJournalofEconomics
cje.oxfordjournals.org
Camb.J.Econ.(2015)39(5):12151229.doi:10.1093/cje/beu071
Firstpublishedonline:December15,2014

Stratificationeconomicsandidentityeconomics
John B. Davis*
+

Author Affiliations

Address for correspondence: Department of Economics, Marquette University, PO Box 1881,

Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881, USA; email: john.davis@mu.edu
Received December 19, 2012.
Revision received August 11, 2014.

Abstract
Stratification economics represents an important new approach devoted to
explaining economic inequality in terms of how social groups are
separated or stratified according to relative group status. This paper
combines stratification economics with identity economics to address
complications that the phenomenon of intersectionalitypeople having
multiple social group identitiescreates for stratification economics. It
distinguishes two types of social identities recognised by social

psychologists, categorical and relational social identities, and uses this

distinction to explain how individuals personal identities, understood as

ordered sets of social identities, can be seen to be both socially and selfconstructed. Individuals order and rank their categorical social identities
according to weights they assign to them in interactive social settings in
which their role-based relational social identities combine different
categorical social identities. Research in social psychology in the stigma

identity-threat literature is then reviewed to distinguish two opposed ways

in which individuals respond to others stigmatisation of their social
groups in interactive settings. The paper argues that the ways in which
individuals respond to stigma reflect social group power relationships and
the scarcity logic of individualist social ontologies and tend to reinforce
social stratification.
Keywords

Stratification

Social identity

Intersectionality

Personal identity

Stigma

Identity threat

JELcodes

A12

D31

D74

Z13

The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political
Economy Society. All rights reserved.

http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/5/1215.abstract

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Stratificationeconomicsandidentityeconomics

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