New Evidence on Inequality of Opportunity in Sub-Saharan Africa: More Unequal Than We Thought

Aziz Atamanov, Pablo Facundo Cuevas, Jeremy Aaron Lebow and Daniel Gerszon Mahler

No 10723, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Unequal access to economic opportunity for individuals with different innate characteristics, such as ethnicity or parents’ socioeconomic status, is often seen as both morally undesirable and bad for economic growth. This paper estimates inequality of opportunity, or the share of inequality explained by birth characteristics, across 18 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. For many countries, this is the first time inequality of opportunity is measured. The paper uses nationally representative household survey data harmonized to allow for cross-country comparisons. Using consumption per capita as the outcome, the findings show that inequality of opportunity in Sub-Saharan Africa is stark and more pronounced than previously estimated. On average, inherited circumstances explain more than half of inequality in the region. Estimates range from 40 to 60 percent in most countries and reach 74 percent in South Africa. The findings show that birthplace, parents’ education, and ethnicity tend to be the most significant contributors, but there is large variation in the importance of circumstances across countries. This represents the most comprehensive estimate of inequality of opportunity to date in the poorest and one of the most unequal regions in the world, and it underscores the pressing need for policy makers to intensify their efforts to address inequality of opportunity to foster societies that are more equitable and unlock the full potential for growth in the region.

Date: 2024-03-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-dev
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/09955820 ... e221936be7486403.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10723

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().