A Representation Index: Measuring the Representation of Minorities in the Income Distribution

Krishna Pendakur, Ravi Pendakur and Simon D. Woodcock
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Krishna Pendakur: Simon Fraser University
Ravi Pendakur: University of Ottawa
Simon D. Woodcock: Simon Fraser University

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2008, vol. 8, issue 1

Abstract: The existence of glass ceilings and sticky floors suggests that disadvantaged workers will be under-represented in some parts of the income distribution, and over-represented in others. We present a representation index that measures the prevalence of population subgroups in different regions of the income (or any other) distribution. Our representation index is easily generalized to condition on characteristics (such as age, education, etc). Further, it generalizes naturally to an index of the severity (or cost) of under-representation to group members, which is based on dollar-weighted representation. Both representation and severity indices are easily calculated via existing regression techniques. We illustrate the approach using Canadian Census data on the earnings of ethnic minorities.

Keywords: representation; discrimination; glass ceiling; quantile regression; expectile regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 C44 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:8:y:2008:i:1:n:44

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