Inequality of opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Is Inequality of Opportunity Robust to the Measurement Approach?

“…Because of its path independence property, many empirical studies employ the MLD. However, the MLD is more sensitive to extreme values than the Gini coefficient and is not bounded from above (Brunori et al ., 2019). Thus, the MLD may underestimate inequality of opportunity when the counterfactual is based on a smoothed distribution, as in and .…”

Does Race and Gender Inequality Impact Income Growth?

“…Under option (i), we use the Gini index. While the Gini coefficient is not an additive decomposable inequality index (recall footnote 10), it has been used to estimate between-group inequality (Brunori et al, 2019). Under option (ii), instead of 𝐼 𝑀𝐿𝐷 (𝑦 ̅), we use the share of between-race-gender inequality over total inequality, 𝐼 𝑀𝐿𝐷 (𝑦 ̅)/𝐼 𝑀𝐿𝐷 (𝑦).…”

Inactive Youth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Inequality of Opportunity Matter?

“…Inequality of opportunity is commonly recognized as a crucial factor in explaining the performance of the labour markets (Dimova and Stephan 2019;Brunori et al 2019;Assaad et al 2019). Inequality of opportunity is defined as the difference in individuals' outcomes systematically correlated with morally irrelevant pre-determined circumstances, such as gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, and area of birth (Roemer 1993(Roemer , 1998.…”

“…More specifically, some sorts of disparities are caused by factors beyond individual control such as gender, age, place of birth/resident, or parental background. However, some types of variations are caused by effort-based inequalities (World Bank 2006;Bradbury and Triest 2016;Marrero et al 2016;Marrero and Rodríguez 2013;Brunori et al 2019). A recent study by Brunori et al (2019) examined the impact of circumstances beyond individual control such as gender, age, ethnicity, birthplace, and parental background on household consumption for ten countries in SSA.…”

“…However, some types of variations are caused by effort-based inequalities (World Bank 2006;Bradbury and Triest 2016;Marrero et al 2016;Marrero and Rodríguez 2013;Brunori et al 2019). A recent study by Brunori et al (2019) examined the impact of circumstances beyond individual control such as gender, age, ethnicity, birthplace, and parental background on household consumption for ten countries in SSA. The results show that all the mentioned factors play a significant role in determining the welfare of households in terms of consumption.…”