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Inequality of opportunity in India

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  • Singh, Ashish

Abstract

The paper associates inequality of opportunities with outcome differences that can be accounted by pre-determined circumstances which lie beyond the control of an individual, such as parental education, parental occupation, caste, religion and place of birth. The overall opportunity share estimates (parametric) of total consumption expenditure inequality due to a set of circumstances comprising of caste, religion, geographical region, parental education and parental occupation vary from 16% to 25% in urban India. The corresponding figures for rural areas stand at 20% and 23%. The analysis further reveals that, parental education is the major contributor to the opportunity share of consumption expenditure inequality in urban India, but caste and geographical region also play an equally important role when rural India is considered.

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  • Singh, Ashish, 2010. "Inequality of opportunity in India," MPRA Paper 32971, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:32971
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Akanksha Choudhary & Gowtham T. Muthukkumaran & Ashish Singh, 2019. "Inequality of Opportunity in Indian Women," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 389-413, August.
    2. Ibragimova, Zulfiya & Frants, Marina, 2021. "Measuring income opportunity inequality: A structural review and meta-analysis," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 61, pages 89-109.
    3. Sripad Motiram & Ashish Singh, 2012. "How Close Does the Apple Fall to the Tree?: Some Evidence on Intergenerational Occupational Mobility from India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-101, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Ibragimova, Zulfiya & Frants, Marina, 2019. "Inequality of opportunity in the Russian Federation: Measurement and evaluation using micro-data," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 54, pages 5-25.
    5. Singh, Ashish, 2010. "Measuring inequality of poverty: theory and an application to India," MPRA Paper 26770, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Nov 2010.
    6. Chakravorty, Swastika & Goli, Srinivas, 2021. "Family Structure, Economic Outcomes and Perceived Change in Economic Well-being in India," OSF Preprints 23kvs, Center for Open Science.
    7. Chandan Sharma & Sudharshan Reddy Paramati, 2018. "Measuring Inequality of Opportunity for the Backward Communities: Regional Evidence from the Indian Labour Market," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(2), pages 479-503, July.
    8. Gupta, Prachi & Das, Upasak & Singh, Ashish, 2013. "Child disability and maternal work participation: New evidence from India," Economics Discussion Papers 2013-6, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Ashish Singh, 2011. "Gender based intra-household inequality of opportunity in academic skills among Indian children," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(3), pages 2333-2346.
    10. Ana Suárez Álvarez & Ana Jesús López Menéndez, 2020. "Trends in Inequality of Opportunity for Developing Countries: Does the Economic Indicator Matter?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 503-539, June.
    11. Sripad Motiram & Ashish Singh, 2012. "How close does the apple fall to the tree? Some evidence on intergenerational occupational mobility from India," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2012-017, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    12. Akanksha Choudhary & Ashish Singh, 2017. "Are Daughters Like Mothers: Evidence on Intergenerational Educational Mobility Among Young Females in India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(2), pages 601-621, September.
    13. Giuseppe Arbia & Maria Lucia Pace, 2018. "Testing inequality of opportunities in Italy using the ANOVA framework," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 297-322, August.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality of opportunity; consumption expenditure inequality; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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