Intersecting inequalities and the Sustainable Development Goals: Insights from Brazil

Abstract

The international development community has long been pre-occupied with the reduction of absolute income poverty, relegating concerns with inequality to the margins of its policy agenda. The Millennium Development Goals, for instance, which were adopted by 189 world leaders at the 2000 Millennium Summit, defined the reduction of absolute poverty by 2015 as its overarching goal. However, concerns about the dramatic rise in income inequality across the world have been growing over the last few decades and came to the forefront of public consciousness in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. At the same time, assessments of national progress on the Millennium Development Goals made it clear that income inequality alone did not explain the distribution of gains and losses across countries. Rather it was the intersection of income inequality, marginalized social identities and, very often, locational disadvantage which led to the systematic exclusion of certain groups. In recognition of this, the Sustainable Development Goals which became the basis of the new post-2015 international development agenda now includes a commitment to the reduction of income and other inequalities, summarized as the principle of 'leave no one behind'. Our paper uses national data from Brazil between 2002 and 2013 to examine retrospectively how it has performed on some of the indicators relating to the inclusive principles articulated by the SDGs. We have selected this period in Brazil because at a time when income inequalities were rising in most countries of the world, they were declining in Brazil. Our paper examines the extent to which this decline in income inequality was accompanied by a decline in intersecting inequalities and explores some of the economic, political and social explanations given for the country's performance. Editorial note and acknowledgementsWe would like to acknowledge the research assistance provided by Amanda Shaw for this paper.

The Impact of Urban Inequalities on Monitoring Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals: Methodological Considerations

“…Horizontal inequalities cut across the economic categories and are related to social discrimination. These are based on group characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, or legal and migration status [25,26]. Intersecting inequalities combine both horizontal and vertical characteristics.…”

“…They are viewed as intensification (rather than grid) of two or more types of social, economic and demographic inequalities which exacerbate each other (ibid. ), regressively increasing barriers to development, and leading to persistent unequal development trajectories among different groups in society [25].…”

Horizontal inequality as an outcome

“…In this collection, we consider multiple inequalities, including across gender and location, as well as vertical inequality, but do not focus on their intersection. Kabeer and Santos (2017), for instance, offers an intersectional approach that might be built upon in future quantitative work.…”

The Impact of Urban Inequalities on Monitoring Progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 11: Methodological Considerations

“…Horizontal inequalities cut across the economic categories and are related to social discrimination. These are based on group characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, or legal and migration status [29], [30] while spatial inequalities are differences in development associated with place-based characteristics, such as remoteness, high density or poor municipal infrastructure provision, and often coincide with intersecting inequalities [29] (Figure 1). Intersecting inequalities represent a particular challenge to development frameworks because they perpetuate unequal development trajectories among different groups in society.…”

“…This means that even though the development indicator shows overall improvement, progress is slower for specific groups [28]). Intersecting inequalities are viewed as intensification (rather than grid) of two or more types of social, economic, demographic and spatial inequalities which exacerbate each other [29], [30]. Although a spatially equal city with intersecting inequalities is hypothetically possible [31] the groups who experience these inequalities simultaneously are the ones who are most persistently and furthest left behind [26].…”