What is the Subnational of Subnational Inequality? An Intersectional Look at Inequality in Latin America

Subnational research in Latin America has established that living conditions in the region's countries are strongly determined by place of residence. However, despite these advances, we know very little about how the subnational dimension interacts with other attributes such as gender, race, and rurality to produce a diverse landscape of disadvantage and privilege. This article uses the intersectionality approach to show the enormous differences in illiteracy and school non-attendance among groups composed of different combinations of these attributes in Peru, Colombia, and Chile. To better understand the effect of the subnational dimension on these differences, the article applies the Oaxaca-Binder decomposition and identifies what portion of the regional gaps is due to different demographic compositions across regions. This analysis motivates a theoretical reflection on the nature of subnational inequality based on distinguishing a compositional and an intersectional component and identifying possible causal factors of both.