Being and experiencing: the role that self-assessed identities play in experienced political representation of minoritized migrant-background citizens through an intersectional lens

Literature on political representation often studies citizens with roots abroad as a homogeneous group, which considers ethnicity their defining identity. However, previous studies have shown experienced representation differs among these citizens, even among people with similar roots. Applying an intersectional lens to literatures on social identities and political representation, we argue that the diverging experiences following the intersections of ethnic background, gender, and education may be important drivers of experienced political representation, which may in turn be shaped by the importance people attach to these identity axes. Regression analyses and estimated marginal means on unique data from the Dutch Ethnic Minority Election Study 2023 simultaneously show no large differences between individuals belonging to different identity intersections but also stress the importance of an intersectional rather than an additive perspective of privileges and marginalizations. For instance, men from the Global North with a practical education experience less political representation than we would expect based on their two privileges. Countering assumptions from previous work homogenising ethnic minorities, we find that education is more impactful than ethnic background, although the experienced representation of some intersectional groups does depend on the extent of identification with ethnic background.