Discriminations and Category-Based Policies Research Group

Research on discrimination has experienced a particular boom in France since the early 2000s. Empirical work attests to the extent and mechanisms of production of inequalities linked to gender, origin, religion, skin colour, sexual orientation, disability, etc., in different contexts of social interaction: labour market, housing market, family, school, administration, police, justice, etc.

Public policy is not neutral in the face of this phenomenon. In addition to the effects induced by public policies in the areas listed above, category-based policies explicitly targeting certain populations (women, ethnoracial minorities, migrants, persons with disabilities, etc.) help to alleviate or, on the contrary, accentuate the discriminations suffered by these populations.

LIEPP's "Discrimination and category-based policies" section is devoted to these issues and contributes to the public debate through an interdisciplinary research approach by assessing the extent and evolution of discrimination in France and analysing the challenges it poses to public policy. It combines research on the measurement of discrimination, on the experience of discrimination, and on (anti-)discriminatory policies. This strand brings together bodies of work on types of inequality and category-based policies that are usually studied separately: