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Inequality of Opportunity in Indian Women

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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.

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Notes

  1. Other than Singh (2012a), there are some studies which have analysed IOp in non-economic outcomes in the Indian context, for example, Asadullah and Yalonetzky (2012), Singh (2012b) and Singh et al. (2014) analyse IOp in education whereas Singh (2011) investigates IOp in immunization and nutrition.

  2. See Singh (2012a) for a more elaborate literature review on the evolution of the concept of IOp.

  3. The present study uses Ferreira and Gignoux (2008)’s theoretical model and empirical strategy for estimation (which in turn follows Bourguignon et al. 2007 to a large extent). We provide only the basic intuition; for details please refer Ferreira and Gignoux (2008).

  4. See Checchi and Peragine (2010), Checchi et al. (2010), Barros et al. (2009), Shorrocks (1980), Foster and Shneyerov (1999, 2000) and Shorrocks and Wan (2005) for a comprehensive and critical discussion on the mentioned properties and the suitability of MLD for decomposing inequality.

  5. Since, the geographical regions of residence are large regions consisting of multiple states, the migration between regions is substantially low. In the urban as well as rural areas less than 10% of the total individuals have migrated from another state. Though, it is difficult to say anything about between-region migration, it can always be argued that between-region migration will be lower than the above estimate because every region consists of multiple states and therefore a lot of between-state migration cases will fall into within-region migration category. We could not include parental occupational status; because the information on parental occupation is not available for the women covered in the analysis.

  6. ‘Others’ caste is referred to ‘general’ class or the uplifted castes in the Indian system. SC/STs are the historically socially and economically disadvantaged caste groups, who have suffered from severe discrimination as well as social and physical exclusion on the hands of ‘Others’. The condition of OBCs have been better than the SC/STs but worse than the ‘Others’.

  7. Region is categorized into six categories, namely, North (Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttaranchal, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan), Central (Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh), East (Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa), North-east (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland and Sikkim), West (Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat), and South (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry). Northern region has been taken as the reference category in the estimation. Kindly see Singh (2012a) for a detailed discussion on the categorization of states into regions.

  8. Checchi et al. (2010) have estimated IOp in earnings for 25 European countries including Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. Here the comparison has been made in terms of the absolute values (level) of IOp and not in terms of IOp as a share of overall inequality.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Ashish Dangi and Ram Kumar for providing suggestions and comments on earlier drafts.

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  1. SJM School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400076, India

    Akanksha Choudhary, Gowtham T. Muthukkumaran & Ashish Singh

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  1. Akanksha Choudhary
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Choudhary, A., Muthukkumaran, G.T. & Singh, A. Inequality of Opportunity in Indian Women. Soc Indic Res 145, 389–413 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-019-02097-w

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