[EQ] Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean

Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean

 

Ricardo Paes de Barros, Francisco H. G. Ferreira, José R. Molinas Vega, and Jaime Saavedra Chanduvi

With Mirela de Carvallo, Samuel Franco, Samuel Freije-Rodríguez, and Jérémie Gignoux

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank, 2008

 

Available online PDF [195p.] at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/LACEXT/Resources/258553-1222276310889/Book_HOI.pdf

 

The problem is that we have never been able to systematically measure inequality of opportunity, in Latin America or anywhere else. The development community simply lacked the methodological tools to monitor equity, making it all but impossible to design, implement, and evaluate public policies that target human opportunity. While the citizens of the region feel the uneven playing field under their feet—that personal sense that one’s destiny is predetermined by circumstances over which one has no control or responsibility, such as skin color, gender, birthplace, or family wealth—their leaders have proved unable to do much about it….”

 

Content:

 

OVERVIEW

1 INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: WHAT IT IS, HOW IT CAN BE MEASURED, AND WHY IT MATTERS

2 A HUMAN OPPORTUNITY INDEX FOR CHILDREN

3 USES AND POLICY APPLICATIONS OF THE HUMAN OPPORTUNITY INDEX

4 INEQUALITY OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY IN SEVEN LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES

5 INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IN EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT IN FIVE LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES

 

HUMAN OPPORTUNITY INDEX

 

Website:  http://go.worldbank.org/A9Z0NUV620

“….Between one fourth and one half of income inequality observed among Latin America and the Caribbean adults is due to personal circumstances endured during childhood that fell outside of their control or responsibility, such as race, gender, birthplace, parent’s educational level and their father’s occupation. These circumstances reveal the level of inequality of opportunity in the region

The new Human Opportunity Index, developed by a Group of economists from the World Bank, Argentina and Brazil, shows how personal circumstances play in gaining or preventing access to those services needed for a productive life, such as running water, sanitation, electricity or basic education among children in the region. This opens up a whole new field of study dedicated to designing public policy focused on equity

 

“……The inequality debate is a loud and acrimonious one. It has polarized Latin America’s politics and blurred its development vision. It has called into question the very role of the state: should it try to redistribute wealth or protect property rights? Encourage social equality or enforce private contracts? And yet, for all its ideological and emotional intensity, this has been the wrong debate. Much more important than inequality of outcomes among adults is inequality of opportunity among children.

The debate should not be about equality (equal rewards for all) but about equity (equal chances for all), because the idea of giving people equal opportunity early in life, whatever their socioeconomic background, is embraced across the political spectrum—as a matter of fairness for the left and as a matter of personal effort for the right….”

 

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