Using the Economic Case for LGBT Equality to Promote Economic Empowerment

The Ashoka University Economics Society, in collaboration with the Ashoka University Queer Collective, invites you to celebrate Pride Month with us! In the spirit of economic empowerment of the LGBTQIA+ community, we have linked the talk to an ongoing fundraiser to support the 'First Milk Cooperative Society run by Transgender people'. The need to support and empower the community cannot be stressed enough and we hope that you will contribute to the fundraiser. Please do donate and amplify. Here is the link once again: https://milaap.org/fundraisers/support-ajitha-4

Speaker: M.V Lee Badgett is a professor of economics and co-director of the Centre for Employment Equity at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research focuses on economic inequality for LGBT people, including wage gaps, employment discrimination, and poverty, and on the global cost of homophobia and transphobia.

Abstract: We can make a strong, evidence-based economic case for human rights for LGBTQIA+ people. Greater inclusion in education, health, and employment will improve the lives of LGBTQIA+ people and will enhance their skills, knowledge, creativity, mental health, and physical health. Those enhanced outcomes will also have benefits for the economy as a whole. This talk will link the economic case to new ideas for the economic empowerment of LGBTQIA+ people globally through public policies and through more direct efforts to expand economic opportunities for low-income LGBTQIA+ people, in particular.  This expanded economic empowerment opens up new spaces for engagement on LGBTQIA+ human rights issues and points to new research questions and data needs.

This promises to be an insightful session and we look forward to seeing you there!