IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp10940.html

Equality of Opportunity for Well-Being

Author

Listed:
  • Mahler, Daniel Gerszon

    (World Bank)

  • Ramos, Xavier

    (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Abstract

A growing literature has tried to measure the extent to which individuals have equal opportunities to acquire income. At the same time, policy makers have doubled down on efforts to go beyond income when measuring well-being. We attempt to bridge these two areas by measuring the extent to which individuals have equal opportunities to achieve a high level of well-being. We use the German Socio-Economic Panel to measure well-being in four different ways including incomes. This makes it possible to determine if the way well-being is measured matters for identifying who the opportunity-deprived are and for tracking inequality of opportunity over time. We find that, regardless of how well-being is measured, the same people are opportunity-deprived and equality of opportunity has improved over the past 20 years. This suggests that going beyond income has little relevance if the objective is to provide equal opportunities.

Suggested Citation

  • Mahler, Daniel Gerszon & Ramos, Xavier, 2017. "Equality of Opportunity for Well-Being," IZA Discussion Papers 10940, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10940
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp10940.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2008. "Happiness Inequality in the United States," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S2), pages 33-79, June.
    2. G.A. Cohen, 1990. "Equality of What? On Welfare, Goods and Capabilities," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 1990035, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    3. Frank A. Cowell, 1985. "Measures of Distributional Change: An Axiomatic Approach," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(1), pages 135-151.
    4. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier & Jara, H. Xavier, 2015. "Back To Bentham: Should We? LargeScale Comparison of Decision versus Experienced Utility for IncomeLeisure Preferences," Working Papers in Economics 611, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    5. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez & Nicholas Turner, 2014. "Is the United States Still a Land of Opportunity? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 141-147, May.
    6. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    7. Caterina Calsamiglia, 2009. "Decentralizing Equality Of Opportunity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(1), pages 273-290, February.
    8. Gert G. Wagner & Joachim R. Frick & Jürgen Schupp, 2007. "The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) – Scope, Evolution and Enhancements," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 127(1), pages 139-169.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ambaw Desalegn & Nigussie Solomon, 2022. "The Interrelationship among Institutional Capacity, Infrastructure Governance and Equity, and Nation-Building Process in Ethiopia," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 627-647, September.
    2. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Dahmann, Sarah C. & Salamanca, Nicolás & Zhu, Anna, 2022. "Intergenerational disadvantage: Learning about equal opportunity from social assistance receipt," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Jaya Krishnakumar & Ricardo Nogales, 2020. "Public Policies and Equality of Opportunity for Wellbeing in Multiple Dimensions: A Theoretical Discussion and Evidence from Bolivia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 297-325, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel Gerszon Mahler & Xavier Ramos, 2019. "Equality of Opportunity in Four Measures of Well‐Being," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(S1), pages 228-255, November.
    2. Veronika V. Eberharter, 2018. "Capability Deprivation, and the Intergenerational Transmission of Social Disadvantages—Empirical Evidence from Selected Countries," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(12), pages 1-22, December.
    3. Baochun Peng & Haidong Yuan, 2021. "Dynamic Fairness: Mobility, Inequality, and the Distribution of Prospects," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(4), pages 1314-1338, October.
    4. Pier-André Bouchard St-Amant & Nicolas Marceau & Jean-Denis Garon, 2024. "Uncovering Gatsby Curves," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 22(4), pages 833-864, December.
    5. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    6. Anna Manzoni & Jessi Streib, 2019. "The Equalizing Power of a College Degree for First-Generation College Students: Disparities Across Institutions, Majors, and Achievement Levels," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 60(5), pages 577-605, August.
    7. Brea-Martinez, Gabriel, 2021. "The beneficial impact of mother’s work on children’s absolute income mobility, Southern Sweden (1947-2015)," SocArXiv c27s8, Center for Open Science.
    8. Liss, Erik & Korpi, Martin & Wennberg, Karl, 2023. "Absolute income mobility and the effect of parent generation inequality: An extended decomposition approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    9. Javier Cortés Orihuela & Juan D. Díaz & Pablo Gutiérrez Cubillos & Pablo A. Troncoso & Gabriel I. Villarroel, 2024. "Intergenerational earnings mobility in Chile: the tale of the upper tail," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(5), pages 2411-2447, November.
    10. Kristoffer Berg & Mr. Shafik Hebous, 2021. "Does a Wealth Tax Improve Equality of Opportunity? Evidence from Norway," IMF Working Papers 2021/085, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Hong, Seiwoong & Lee, Junyong & Oh, Frederick Dongchuhl & Shin, Donglim, 2024. "Religion and household saving behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    12. Daniel D. Schnitzlein, 2016. "A New Look at Intergenerational Mobility in Germany Compared to the U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(4), pages 650-667, December.
    13. O. Chanel & S. Luchini & M. Teschl & A. Trannoy, 2025. "Preferences for redistributive justice: A participatory-democracy experiment," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 23(3), pages 717-747, September.
    14. Zafar, Rafia, 2022. "Intergenerational Mobility in Income and Consumption: Evidence from Indonesia," SocArXiv uzcfs, Center for Open Science.
    15. Jesse Rothstein, 2019. "Inequality of Educational Opportunity? Schools as Mediators of the Intergenerational Transmission of Income," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(S1), pages 85-123.
    16. Suzane Bellue, 2023. "Why Don’t Poor Families Move? A Spatial Equilibirum Analysis of Parental Decisions with Social Learning," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_472, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    17. Simone Moriconi & Mikaël Pasternak & Ahmed Trita & Nadiya Ukrayinchuk, 2025. "Climbing the Ladder: The Intergenerational Mobility of Second-Generation Immigrants in France," Working Papers 2025-iFlame-01, IESEG School of Management.
    18. Mario Alloza, 2021. "The impact of taxes on income mobility," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(4), pages 794-854, August.
    19. Julia Baarck & Moritz Bode & Andreas Peichl, 2025. "Rising Inequality, Declining Mobility: The Evolution of Intergenerational Mobility in Germany," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 550, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    20. Steven N. Durlauf & Ananth Seshadri, 2018. "Understanding the Great Gatsby Curve," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 333-393.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10940. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.