Long-Term Evolution of Inequality of Opportunity
The main goal of this paper is to document and analyze the long-term evolution of inequality of opportunity and thus extend the recent empirical literature, which is mainly concerned with its measurement at a specific point in time. Using repeated...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/966611547560055477/Long-Term-Evolution-of-Inequality-of-Opportunity http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31168 |
| Summary: | The main goal of this paper is to
document and analyze the long-term evolution of inequality
of opportunity and thus extend the recent empirical
literature, which is mainly concerned with its measurement
at a specific point in time. Using repeated cross-section
surveys for five European countries (France, Germany, Great
Britain, Italy, and Switzerland), the evolution of
inequality of opportunity is measured for a period of about
two decades for the whole populations, as well as for
different birth cohorts. Relative inequality of opportunity
represents an important portion of total income inequality,
with values ranging from 30 to 50 percent according to the
standard deviation of logs (and reaching a lower share in
case of mean log deviation) and, for all the countries, it
shows a stable or declining time trend. When the birth
cohorts are followed across time, inequality of opportunity
decreases with age: the effect of circumstances seems to
weaken over the life cycle. This is a quite different age
profile from that of inequality of outcomes (income or
consumption), which generally increases with age. A
decomposition of the relative inequality of opportunity
allows highlighting some key drivers of its time evolution.
In all the countries, there has been a clear enhancement of
equality of educational opportunity (as captured by a
downward trending intergenerational education persistence)
and a reduction of the returns to education. However, for
some countries, notably Italy, these trends have failed to
translate into decreasing inequality of opportunity in the
income distribution because of the increasing role of
parental networking (an additional channel through which
parental background affects the incomes of offspring). |
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