Discrimination and Equality of Opportunity

J. Ignacio García-Pérez () and Antonio Villar
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J. Ignacio García-Pérez: Universidad Pablo de Olavide, FEDEA & FCEA
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: J. Ignacio García Pérez ()

No 09.05, Working Papers from Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper presents a measure of social discrimination based on the principle of equality of opportunity. According to this principle we only have to care about the inequality derived from people’s differential circumstances (and not about outcome differences due to people’s diverse degree of effort). We propose approaching the measurement of group discrimination as the “welfare loss” attributed to the inequality between social groups of similar characteristics. We also provide an empirical application to the analysis of gender discrimination in the European labour market. We estimate wage equations to breakdown wage gaps and to control for extra individual heterogeneity. Given these predictions, we compute the index of welfare loss due to gender discrimination.

Keywords: Equality of opportunity; welfare losses; gender discrimination; wage equations. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2009-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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http://www.upo.es/serv/bib/wps/econ0905.pdf First version, 2009 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pab:wpaper:09.05

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