Join the APPG on Global LGBT+ Rights for an online discussion with M. V. Lee Badgett on her book The Economic Case for LGBT Equality: Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All, moderated by Baroness Barker.
Wednesday November 11, 2020
5.30pm GMT / 12.30pm EST
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8aa-uNGaTu2VcSTfyqnhbw
We know that homophobia harms LGBT individuals in many ways, but economist M. V. Lee Badgett argues that in addition to moral and human rights reasons for equality, we can now also make a financial argument. Finding that homophobia and transphobia cost 1% or more of a country’s GDP, Badgett expertly uses recent research and statistics to analyze how these hostile practices and environments affect both the US and global economies.
Discriminatory laws, people being fired from jobs for their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, harassment and bullying in school, violence and hate crimes on the streets, exclusion from intolerant families, and health effects of stigma all make it incredibly difficult to live a good life. Examining the consequences of anti-LGBT practices across multiple countries, including the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, India and the Philippines, Badgett reveals the expensive repercussions of hate and discrimination, and how our economy loses when we miss out on the full benefit of LGBT people’s potential contributions.
M. V. Lee Badgett is a professor of economics and co-director of the Center for Employment Equity at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and she is the former director of the School of Public Policy. She is also a Williams Distinguished Scholar at UCLA’s Williams Institute, where she was a co-founder and the first research director. She has a Ph.D. in economics from the UC Berkeley and a BA from the University of Chicago. 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.
Baroness Barker is a Liberal Democrat Member of the House of Lords and Vice Chair of the APPG on Global LGBT+ Rights.
The APPG on Global LGBT+ Rights is an informal group of UK parliamentarians across parties from both the House of Commons and House of Lords, united in a common aim to improve rights for LGBT+ people globally.