Exploring the links of multidiscrimination: Considering Britain and India

The concept of multiple discrimination – particularly in the labour market – is fast becoming common parlance among the policy-making circles. Economics and economists, however, have hardly addressed issues of multi-discrimination or intersectional discrimination. By surveying the economics literature, from the orthodoxy to the heterodoxy, this paper show how economists are unfortunately are lagging behind legal and human rights theorists in tackling the issue of multi-discrimination. Britain and India are used as cases in point in this literature survey to show the value and need to address multi-discrimination from an economic angle too. The importance of this preliminary research is also to highlight that the prevalence of multidiscrimination indicates the absence of decent work opportunities, with concomitant implications for poverty, social exclusion and development.