Polarization of opportunity

Pedro Salas-Rojo, Vanesa Jordá and Paolo Brunori

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We introduce the concept of polarization of opportunities (POp) to explore how various circumstances shape unfair inequalities. While conventional measures of inequality of opportunity (IOp) focus on outcome disparities linked to factors such as race or gender, they do not account for how these circumstances group individuals into relatively uniform clusters. POp fills this gap by examining both the influence of circumstances and their role in clustering individuals into distinct poles. Using U.S. data, our analysis shows that while income polarization and IOp have risen over time, POp has decreased.

Keywords: inequality; opportunity; polarization; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 4 pages
Date: 2025-06
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Published in Economics Letters, June, 2025, 253. ISSN: 0165-1765

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