Jamaica’s social inequality is primarily held to be class-based due, in part, to the country’s perceived ethno-racial homogeneity and to the particularities of its colonial past. However, whether “race” also systemically shapes inequality in Jamaica remains understudied. To address this empirical lacuna, I examine the effects of two measures of race—categorical race and skin color—on years of schooling and household amenities using data from the 2014 AmericasBarometer social survey. I find that access to household amenities and years of schooling are starkly structured by racial category, and even more robustly by skin color, across all dimensions. The findings challenge long-held assumptions that marginalize race with regards to social inequality in Jamaica. They also suggest the importance of a multidimensional approach to studying the effects of race for understanding stratification dynamics in Jamaica. As an English-speaking, majority Afro-descent society in the Caribbean, the study’s findings add a unique country case for comparison to Latin America and may also speak to other similar contexts in the region.

牙买加的社会不平等主要被认为是基于阶级的，部分原因是该国被认为的民族-种族同质性以及殖民时期的特殊性。但是，“种族”是否也系统性地影响了牙买加的不平等，目前尚待研究。为了解决这一经验不足，我使用2014 AmericasBarometer社会调查的数据，考察了种族的两种度量标准（分类种族和肤色）对上学年和家庭设施的影响。我发现，在各个维度上，按种族类别构成的家庭服务结构和受教育年限都是明显不同的，而肤色则更为稳健。这一发现挑战了长期以来就使种族在牙买加社会不平等方面处于边缘地位的假设。他们还建议采用多维方法研究种族的影响，以了解牙买加的分层动态。作为加勒比地区一个讲英语的占多数的非裔血统的社会，该研究结果为与拉丁美洲进行比较提供了独特的国家案例，也可能与该地区的其他类似情况相提并论。