Inequality of Human Opportunities in Developing Asia

Hyun H. Son
Additional contact information
Hyun H. Son: Principal Evaluation Specialist at the Independent Evaluation Department of the ADB

Asian Development Review, 2013, vol. 30, issue 2, 110-130

Abstract: This paper analyzes the equity of opportunity in basic education and infrastructure services in seven developing countries, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam. The analysis applies a method developed by the World Bank called the Human Opportunity Index, which measures the total contribution of individual socioeconomic and demographic circumstances to inequality of opportunity in accessing basic services. The new and major contribution of the paper, however, is the development of a methodology that quantifies the relative contribution of each circumstance variable to the inequality of opportunity. This contribution is crucial in identifying which underlying inequalities matter most—which can have important policy implications, for instance, in terms of developing better-targeted interventions. Results of the empirical analysis indicate that more needs to be done to improve the distribution of economic benefits. Opportunities to access basic education and infrastructure services in the seven countries vary widely in terms of availability and distribution. The study also finds that inequality of opportunity is driven mainly by per capita household expenditure. This suggests that household poverty plays a crucial role in determining equitable access to basic services. © 2013 Asian Development Bank and Asian Development Bank Institute.

Keywords: inequality; education; health; basic infrastructure; human opportunity; poverty; access to water and sanitation; access to electricity; urbanization; agglomeration; developing Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I24 I25 I38 O15 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ADEV_a_00017 link to full text 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:tpr:adbadr:v:30:y:2013:i:2:p:110-130

Access Statistics for this article

Asian Development Review is currently edited by Yasuyuki Sawada and Naoyuki Yoshino

More articles in Asian Development Review from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().