Intersectionality and the assessment of gaps in social citizenship

This paper presents an attempt to operationalise the theoretical concept of intersectionality by using quantitative methods to apply this analytical perspective to the assessment of social rights in Europe. To be precise we are implementing an analytical model simultaneously disaggregated by gender and at the territorial level. The paper is the result of a coherent development of the work done along the EUROSHIP project. The national level version was developed and presented in EUROSHIP Working Paper n°13 (Biggeri et al. 2022). In this paper we take it one step further and develop a NUTS2 level and gender-sensitive disaggregation of the European Social Rights Indicator (ESRI). Thanks to the development of a tailored dataset, the new analyses included in this paper allows the comparison of the evolution of social rights across European NUTS2 regions and over time. The analysis has been conducted using GIS-based data visualisation techniques that proved to be extremely effective in identifying regions where the level of social rights is particularly high/low, where the evolution of the social rights level over the last 10 years is particularly positive/negative and regions where the gender gap in social rights is particularly wide/narrow. Moreover, this analysis has led to the identification of divergent and convergent trends between regions as well as across and within macro areas (i.e. Norther, Eastern and Southern Europe).