The Consequences of Cumulative Discrimination: How Special Schooling Influences Employment and Wages of Roma in the Czech Republic

Source: European Educational Research Journal, Volume 13 Number 3 2014, p. 282‑294.

This paper looks at the role of special schooling in driving labour market inequalities between Roma and non-Roma in the Czech Republic.

The article confirms the findings of other studies that Roma face significant differences in labour market outcomes which cannot be explained in terms of educational attainment. Moreover, the authors find that the discriminatory streaming of Roma into special remedial schools for the mentally disabled influences both labour market outcomes and the level of educational attainment; the latter effect being particularly strong.

Special school attendance explains a small part of Roma labour market discrimination as typically measured.
However, its main impact is through lowering Roma educational attainment suggesting an additional discriminatory element in Roma and non-Roma labour market outcomes.

Thus, the authors propose that labour market inequality should be understood as a complex outcome of cumulative discrimination.
Furthermore, the non-parametric matching approach employed here explicitly takes into consideration the substantial differences in educational attainment observable between Roma and non-Roma.