Measuring the contribution of racial stratification and social class at birth to inequality of opportunity

Paul Makdissi () and Myra Yazbeck ()
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Paul Makdissi: Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Canada
Myra Yazbeck: Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Canada

No 2503E, Working Papers from University of Ottawa, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper develops a framework for decomposing inequality of opportunity into racial stratification and social class components. We derive novel dominance conditions that enable robust rankings of joint distributions of income and birth circumstances, and develop additional dominance criteria for restricted classes of indices reflecting either pro-poor or meritocratic perspectives. Our framework includes an estimation approach and statistical tests for these stochastic dominance conditions, ensuring practical application with survey data. Using Health and Retirement Study data, we analyze inequality of opportunity in earnings among aging U.S. populations between 2010-2020. While social class-based inequality decreased for certain classes of indices, the racial stratification component increased, driving overall rising inequality of opportunity.

Keywords: Inequality of opportunity; stochastic dominance; stratification. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 I32 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-hea
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ott:wpaper:2503e

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