Gowtham T. Muthukkumaran

Abstract: Inequality of opportunity (IOp) in any society is defined as that part of overall inequality which arises from factors beyond the control of an individual (circumstances) such as parental education, caste, gender, religion etc. and is thus considered unfair and is against the meritocratic values of a society. Hence, it needs to be controlled and compensated. We estimate the IOp in economic outcomes among Indian women by using the nationally representative India Human Development Survey 2011–2012. We include parental education, caste, religion and region of birth as circumstances. The overall IOp in income ranges from 18–25% and 16–21% (of total income inequality) in urban and rural areas, respectively. The corresponding figures for consumption expenditure are 16–22% and 20–23% in urban and rural areas, respectively. We also estimate the partial contributions of the circumstances to the overall IOp. We find that the parental education is the most significant contributor to IOp in urban areas, whereas, region of birth is the most significant contributor to IOp in rural areas. Fortunately, findings imply that socially and culturally imbedded factors like caste and religion which are more persistent do contribute to the IOp, but, the largest contribution is due to factors like parental education and region which can be relatively easily tackled and addressed with policy interventions.

Abstract: Crimes against the historically marginalized Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC and ST) by the upper castes in India represent an extreme form of prejudice and discrimination. In this paper, we investigate whether changes in relative material standards of living between the SCs/STs and upper castes – as measured by the ratio of consumption expenditures of SCs/STs to that of upper castes – are associated with changes in the incidence of crimes against SCs/STs. Based on the hierarchical social structure implied by the caste system, we posit that an increase in the expenditure ratio is positively correlated with the incidence of crimes committed by the upper castes against the lower castes. Using official district level crime data for the period 2001–2010, we find a positive association between crimes and expenditure of SC/ST vis-a-vis the upper castes. Further, distinguishing between violent and non-violent crimes, we find it is the violent crimes that are responsive to changes in economic gaps. Moreover, this relationship is on account of changes in the upper castes’ economic well-being rather than changes in the economic position of the SCs and STs.

Abstract: A child’s access to health care and minimum nutrition should not depend on circumstances such as caste, religion, gender, place of birth, or other parental characteristics, which are beyond the control of a child. This paper uses two rounds of Indian National Family Health Surveys and concepts of Inequality of Opportunity and Human Opportunity Indices to measure inequality arising out of unequal access to full immunization and minimum nutrition for Indian children. The results suggest overall high level of inequality of opportunity with substantial geographical variations. Changes in inequality of opportunity in the two services during 1992-93 to 2005-06 were mixed with some geographical regions outperforming others. The findings also call for substantial policy revisions if the goal of universal access to full immunization and minimum nutrition has to be achieved.

Abstract: A few studies in India have related daughters’ education to their fathers, but there is little to no evidence when it comes to the intergenerational relation between daughters and mothers’ education. Using India Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2011–2012, the purpose of this paper is to investigate intergenerational educational mobility among women (15–49 years) (vis-a-vis their mothers) for all India.,The study uses transition/mobility matrices and multiple mobility measures for the examination of intergenerational educational mobility among women (15–49 years) in India. The data have been taken from the “India Human Development Survey 2011-12.”,Findings indicate that intergenerational educational mobility at the all-India level is about 0.69, that is, 69 percent of the women acquire a level of education different from their mothers. Of the overall mobility, about 80 percent is contributed by upward mobility whereas the rest is downward. Mobility is greater in urban areas and is highest among the socially advantaged “Others” (or upper) caste group. Also, the upward component is substantially lower for socially disadvantaged groups compared to others. Further, there are large inter-regional variations, with the situation being worst in the central and eastern states such as Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, etc. Moreover, mobility (overall and upward) increases consistently as one moves up the income distribution.,This study is perhaps the first study which comprehensively studies intergenerational educational mobility for women (15–49 years) at an all-India level. Findings not only capture the mobility at the aggregate level but also for different caste groups as well as regional variations and income effect.

Abstract: We construct a pseudo panel sample from the China General Social Survey to study the inequality of opportunity in China. The pseudo panel enables us to control for cohort-specific heterogeneities when estimating the Mincer equation, and the results show that individual circumstances play a prominent role in determining income advantage. Counterfactual analysis further reveals the importance of cohort-level circumstances: individual circumstances account for less than 10% of the observed income inequality, whereas equalizing both the individual circumstances and the cohort fixed effects reduces income inequality by 30%. Among the individual circumstances we examine, gender and paternal characteristics contribute more to income inequality than does hukou of birth. Subsample analysis shows that China's western provinces exhibit the highest inequality of opportunity and that the inequality of opportunity among younger cohorts is smaller than that among older cohorts.

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to shed some light on the behaviour of Inequality of Opportunity (IOp henceforth) in developing countries. The analysis is carried out using microdata collected by national surveys and harmonised by the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). The LIS database incorporates a wide variety of personal harmonised variables, which allow us to made cross-country comparisons for developing countries. More specifically, we analyse six countries: Brazil, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Peru and South Africa and the periods of time covered vary from 2004 to 2014. In order to analyse the impact of inequality of opportunity we compute relative indicators by comparing IOp with economic inequality for each country analysed. Moreover, to check the robustness of our results we include two sensitivity analyses: first, we test the significance of overtime changes using inferential procedures and second, we assess if different economic indicators lead to different conclusions both in the evolution of IOp and overall inequality and in the relative weights of the circumstances that conform IOp. More specifically, regarding the first aim we focus on the disposable equivalised income to measure IOp and Income Inequality and we test if overtime changes are statistically significant using bootstrapping procedures. With regard to the second objective, to test the robustness of the results we compute IOp and Inequality for four different economic aggregates: Personal Income, Labour Personal Income, Consumption and Monetary Consumption. The empirical results of these analyses lead to two interesting conclusions: most of the overtime changes are found to be statistically significant and the use of a specific economic indicator is not as important as it at first seems, leading in most cases to the same conclusions.