Trends in Inequality of Opportunity for Developing Countries: Does the Economic Indicator Matter?
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the impact of inequality of opportunity on economic inequality in six countries: Brazil, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Peru and South Africa and the periods of time covered vary from 2004 to 2014.
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.
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TL;DR: Analysis of the relationship between the vaccination rate, the GDP growth, and the incidence of the coronavirus disease shows that the situation is more challenging in less developed countries, especially African countries, due to weak health systems and low rates of vaccination.
Abstract: Background The devastating health and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global response in the development of effective vaccines to fight the disease in an extraordinarily short time. Both the development and the production of these vaccines opened a path of hope, but the inequality in vaccine distribution raises great concerns about the possibility of effectively eradicating the virus. Methods It is particularly important to analyse the extent to which vaccines are equally distributed and investigate the possible effects of vaccine inequalities as well as its major drivers. For this purpose, this paper investigates the extent of equitable vaccine distribution using some well-known inequality measures and disentangles the main drivers of the share of vaccination. In addition, the paper analyses the relationship between the vaccination rate, the GDP growth, and the incidence of the coronavirus disease, with the aim of providing empirical evidence on existing relationships worldwide. Results Our findings show that the situation is more challenging in less developed countries, especially African countries, due to weak health systems and low rates of vaccination. Moreover, we find a positive relationship between the share of vaccinated individuals and GDP. Consequently, the poorest, least developed countries with a lower rate of vaccine uptake will experience lower GDP growth. Conclusions Vaccines and the vaccination process reveal the existing inequalities between countries and how they, in turn, impact the well-being of their citizens. People who live in less developed countries have a lower probability of being vaccinated, which translates into a greater probability of dying from COVID. Countries are seeing their economic future compromised by low vaccination levels, given the positive and significant relationship between the vaccination rate and GDP growth. In short, while some countries are trying to get back to some sort of normality, even with some pandemic protocols, the situation in less developed countries is more challenging due to weak health systems and low rates of vaccination. Consequently, the poorest, least developed countries with a lower rate of vaccine penetration will experience lower GDP growth, and the pandemic will have a greater effect on their economy due to low vaccination rates.
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01 Jan 2022TL;DR: In this paper , the normative foundation of the theory of (in)equality of opportunity, the different declinations of the principle of equality of opportunity proposed by the literature and its mathematical construct, and the most recent empirical findings on the measurement of inequality of opportunity in both the monetary and non-monetary spaces are discussed.
Abstract: This chapter provides a discussion of the normative foundation of the theory of (in)equality of opportunity, the different declinations of the principle of equality of opportunity proposed by the literature and its mathematical construct. It also offers a review of the most recent empirical findings on the measurement of inequality of opportunity in both the monetary and non-monetary spaces.
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TL;DR: In this paper , the authors investigated the influence of organizational fairness on the emotional exhaustion and leave intentions of Peruvian precarious workers and found that treating precarious workers fairly reduced their emotional exhaustion, and that anomie at work mediated the relationship between organizational fairness and emotional exhaustion.
Abstract: Precarious workers usually have some of the most unstable working conditions in any country. In this research, we firstly investigated the influence of organizational fairness on the emotional exhaustion and leave intentions of Peruvian precarious workers. Then, we tested the mediating role of anomie at work in the relationship between organizational fairness and the emotional exhaustion and leave intentions of precarious workers. To identify the impact of organizational fairness on these workers, we conducted a cross-sectional survey among 206 precarious workers in Peru. Our results showed that treating precarious workers fairly reduced their emotional exhaustion and leave intentions. Furthermore, we found that anomie at work mediate the relationship between organizational fairness and the emotional exhaustion and the relationship between organizational fairness and leave intentions of precarious workers. We provide empirical evidence of the critical role of organizational fairness in the reduction of emotional exhaustion and leave intentions among precarious workers. Examining the consequences of precarious workers’ perceptions of organizational fairness is needed for owners and managers of companies to have a clear understanding of how precarious workers’ working environments may shape their attitudes and work behaviors.
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TL;DR: In this article, the extent of inequality of educational opportunity in India spanning the period 1983-2004 using National Sample Surveys was investigated and the links between progress toward equality of opportunity and a selection of pro-poor policies were examined.
115 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used the EU-SILC database to estimate and compare the Inequality of Opportunity (IO) of 23 European countries in 2005 using the parametric procedure of Ferreira and Gignoux.
Abstract: Using the EU-SILC database, we estimate and compare the Inequality of Opportunity (IO) of 23 European countries in 2005. IO is estimated as the between-type (ex-ante) inequality component following the parametric procedure of Ferreira and Gignoux (2011), which allows for the inclusion of the large set of circumstances in the database. We also measure the degree of correlation between IO estimates and a set of past and contemporaneous economic factors related to the degree of development, labor market performance, investment in human capital, and social protection spending.
103 citations
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TL;DR: The authors put together the dierent conceptual issues involved in measuring inequality of opportunity, discuss how these concepts have been translated into computable measures, and point out the problems and choices researchers face when implementing these measures.
Abstract: We put together the dierent conceptual issues involved in measuring inequality of opportunity, discuss how these concepts have been translated into computable measures, and point out the problems and choices researchers face when implementing these measures. Our analysis identies and suggests several new possibilities to measure inequality of opportunity. The relevance of the conceptual issues and modelling choices are illustrated with ndings from the empirical literature on income inequality of opportunity.
97 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluate the contribution of inequality of opportunity to earnings inequality in Egypt and analyzes its evolution across three time periods and different population groups, and provide parametric and nonparametric estimates of a lower bound for the degree of inequality for wage and salary workers.
Abstract: The article evaluates the contribution of inequality of opportunity to earnings inequality in Egypt and analyzes its evolution across three time periods and different population groups. It provides parametric and nonparametric estimates of a lower bound for the degree of inequality of opportunity for wage and salary workers. On average, the contribution of opportunity-shaping circumstances to earnings inequality declined from 22 percent in 1988 to 15 percent in 2006. Levels of inequality of opportunity were fairly stable while earnings differentials widened markedly, leading to a decline in the share of inequality attributable to opportunities. Father's background and geographic origins had the largest effect on earnings, although the impact of mother's education has risen in recent years. The degree of inequality of opportunity did not differ significantly by gender or rural–urban area, although the incidence was lower for men and for rural areas. The results indicate an increase in inequality of opportu...
78 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors associate inequality of opportunities with outcome differences that can be accounted by predetermined circumstances which lie beyond the control of an individual, such as parental education, parental occupation, caste, religion, and place of birth, and find evidence that the parental education specific opportunity share of overall earnings and consumption expenditure is largest in urban India, but caste and geographical region also play an equally important role when rural India is considered.
Abstract: The paper associates inequality of opportunities with outcome differences that can be accounted by predetermined circumstances which lie beyond the control of an individual, such as parental education, parental occupation, caste, religion, and place of birth. The non-parametric estimates using parental education as a measure of circumstances reveal that the opportunity share of earnings inequality in 2004–05 was 11–19 percent for urban India and 5–8 percent for rural India. The same figures for consumption expenditure inequality are 10–19 percent for urban India and 5–9 percent for rural India. The overall opportunity share estimates (parametric) of earnings inequality due to circumstances, including caste, religion, region, parental education, and parental occupation, vary from 18 to 26 percent for urban India, and from 16 to 21 percent for rural India. The overall opportunity share estimates for consumption expenditure inequality are close to the earnings inequality figures for both urban and rural areas. The analysis further finds evidence that the parental education specific opportunity share of overall earnings (and consumption expenditure) inequality is largest in urban India, but caste and geographical region also play an equally important role when rural India is considered.
74 citations