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The Indian enigma, the prevalence of higher chronic undernutrition among Indian children compared to poorer countries, is driven by stunted children from the so-called lower caste. Based on this background, the study measures the extent of the inequities contributed by the caste system to the availability of minimum nutrition among children aged 2 years and less in the country. We use the third and fifth rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and employ the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) for the analysis. HOI is the technique that measures the inequality of opportunity experienced by children. The study controls for other social, family, regional and child-level circumstances. Findings reveal that the success story of the economic growth of the country has not contributed to an equal allocation of minimum nutrition availability, where the absolute difference of the HOI index between children belonging to the low caste subgroups and others is high. On the other hand, considering the account of HOI across the two NFHS rounds for each subgroup, the improvement rate depicts an optimistic future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under-five mortality is known to be the result of a wide variety of inputs, among which the availability of maternal and child health services. However, their coverage and distribution, in low- and middle-income countries, continue to remain inadequate and characterized by significant inequalities. The main aim of this study is to investigate the causes of inequality in accessing the basic maternal and newborn healthcare services in Bangladesh. To this end, we use nationally representative cross-sectional data from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS), 2014. Our study builds on the Human Opportunity Index (HOI), developed at the World Bank (in World development report: Equity and development, World Bank, Washington, 2006), which measures the total contribution of individual socioeconomic and demographic circumstances to inequality of opportunity in accessing basic services. Our findings reveal that a mother's education, wealth index and place of residence, are closely associated with access to basic maternal and newborn healthcare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artikel ini bertujuan mengukur kesempatan anak usia 7-18 tahun di Kalimantan Timur dalam mendapatkan akses pendidikan. Pengukuran kesempatan menggunakan Human Opportunity Index (HOI)yang dikembangkan oleh Bank Dunia. Indeks ini digunakan untuk melihat keadaan di luar kendali seorang anak dan menentukan kesempatan mereka untuk mendapatkan pendidikan. Hasil analisis data Survei Sosial Ekonomi Nasional Maret 2020 menunjukkan hampir seluruh anak usia 7-15 tahun di Kalimantan Timur telah dapat mengakses pendidikan dasar. Namun demikian, masih terdapat ketimpangan kesempatan terhadap akses pendidikan menengah pada anak usia 16-18 tahun. Tidak terdapat perbedaan akses pendidikan antara anak laki-laki dan perempuan di kedua jenjang pendidikan. Faktor latar belakang keluarga, yakni pendidikan kepala keluarga dan kondisi ekonomi, serta tempat tinggal anak menjadi faktor yang berpengaruh terhadap ketimpangan akses menuju pendidikan menengah. Tingkat ketimpangan akses pendidikan menengah lebih rendah di wilayah perdesaan dibandingkan wilayah perkotaan. Reformasi kebijakan di bidang pendidikan sangat diperlukan untuk menghilangkan keterkaitan antara akses pendidikan anak dengan keadaan di luar kontrol seorang anak, seperti latar belakang keluarga atau tempat tinggal. Kebijakan yang bisa diambil antara lain memperbanyak jumlah sekolah menengah, serta meningkatkan akses transportasi dan infrastruktur jalan untuk mempermudah akses pendidikan.

We present estimates of the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) for 10 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) using harmonized household expenditure and income surveys. The index measures equality of opportunity in access to basic services (electricity, piped water, sanitation and basic education) by children. MENA governments play a large role in provision of these services, so how equitably they are provided determines the life chances of MENA children and overall equality of opportunity in these countries. We find that HOI levels in MENA countries have improved over time and compare favorably with similar measures computed for other countries, notably those in Latin America. Our findings broadly indicate that authoritarian MENA governments that are widely criticized for failing to foster dynamic economies and deliver jobs and high economic growth, have done reasonably well in providing access to basic services and ensuring that they are delivered relatively equitably. We provide decompositions of HOI for individual outcomes over time to account for the contribution of the change in average access vs. its distribution to change in the HOI. We also provide the Shapley decompositions of the Dissimilarity Index of the outcomes to gain insight into the significance of different circumstances to changes in the HOI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Inequality of opportunity in health and nutrition is a major public health issue in the developing regions. This study analyzed the patterns and extent of inequality of opportunity in health and nutrition among children under-five across three countries sub-Saharan Africa with low Human development index (HDI). Methods We used data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey of the Democratic Republic of Congo (20,792 households, 21,756 women aged 15 to 49 and 21,456 children under five), Guinea Bissau (6601 households, 10,234 women aged 15–49 and 7573 children under five) and Mali (11,830 households, 18,409 women in 15–49 years and 16,468 children under five) to compute the human opportunity index (HOI) and the dissimilarity index (D-index). Secondly, the Shapley decomposition method was used to estimate the relative contribution of circumstances that are beyond the control of children under-five and affecting their development outcomes in later life stages. Results The study revealed that children belonging to the most favorable group had higher access rates for immunization (93.64%) and water and sanitation facilities (73.59%) in Guinea Bissau. In Congo DR, the access rate was high for immunization (93.9%) for children in the most favorable group. In Mali, access rates stood at 6.56% for children in the most favorable group. In Guinea Bissau, the inequality of opportunity was important in access to health services before and after delivery (43.85%). In Congo DR, the inequality of opportunity was only high for the immunization composite indicator (83.79%) while in Mali, inequality of opportunity was higher for access to health services before and after delivery (41.67%). Conclusion The results show that there are efforts in some places to promote access to health and nutrition services in order to make access equal without distinction linked to the socio-economic and demographic characteristics in which the children live. However, the inequalities of opportunity observed between the children of the most favorable group and those of the least favorable group, remain in general at significant levels and call on government of these countries to implement policies taking them into account.

The objective of this study is to provide a quantifiable measure of the distributional content of education and its implications on earnings distribution by gender across different groups of people by using survey data in India. We analyze educational disparities among the children with age up to 14 years by gender, and household specific characters with Indian data. The study observes that, in the rural economy, the girls have less access to full time education than boys. In the urban region, on the other hand, the access to full time education at primary level is more for girls than for boys. The estimated coverage is less in the rural areas than in urban areas. The HOI is more among the urban children than among the rural children. Parent’s education has the highest contribution to inequality of opportunity to full time education at primary or upper primary level.

Inequality in the use of antenatal care (ANC) has long been a barrier to obtain universal access of the service. The aim of this work to analyze the inequality of opportunity in access toANC in districts of Punjab, Pakistan and explore the circumstance variables that contribute the most to the inequality. The study isconducted using Punjab's Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2017-18 and the data analyzed are taken from women with a live birth in the last 2 years who have had at least one ANC visit. The Human Opportunity Index is used to measure the coverage rate, inequality and universal access of opportunity across the districts of Punjab.It is noted that most of the southern districts of Punjab (Rajanpur, Bhakkar, Muzaffargarh and others) have poor coverage rates and low universal access for the ANC and northern districts (Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Lahore and others) have high coverage and universal access for the ANC.There is also higher inequalityin southern and central districts of Punjab.Further, Shapley Decomposition is utilized to identify the contribution of the circumstance variables to the inequality. It is found that household wealth status, birth order, birth interval, household head education, ethnicity, media access and residence were the most significant factors leading to inequality of opportunity in the accessibility of ANC services across the districts of Punjab. On the basis of the results, some policies are suggested to the Government at end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documented the overall improvement in living conditions and equality of opportunity in several LAC countries. However, huge disparities within as well as across countries remain. The Human Opportunity Index (HOI) for the analyzed advantages ranges from almost universal coverage for school attendance and electricity in Chile and Mexico to very low HOI levels for sewerage and housing conditions in Nicaragua. For all advantages and countries, more recent levels of HOI showed significant improvements in comparison to previous censuses’ levels. This paper opens the territorial “black box” by assessing the importance of territorial variables vis á vis personal and households´ circumstances in determining the inequality of distribution of each advantage. In almost every case, in explaining access to advantages, territorial circumstances appeared to be more important than the individuals´ ones (sex and ethnic origin of the child). Territorial variables were the most important determinant for supply-driven advantages (i.e. public services), whereas their importance is slightly lower for advantages that are more closely linked to the demand-side (quality of housing material) or to both sides (schooling). Among territorial characteristics, in almost all cases the most influential ones were those linked to the geography (density and rural/urban condition), followed by those linked to human capital (illiteracy rate and the migratory capital of territories). Institutional proxies (ethnic fragmentation, political participation) and variables linked to the economic structure (employment concentration, main activities) appeared to have a lower impact. All things considered, the paper points to the still long road ahead to provide equality of opportunity for the youth within each country. In this scenario, the territory imposes important access restrictions for all the advantages studied, in some cases representing more than 50% of the total inequality. As a general result, the importance of the territory calls for place-based policies as a tool for achieving equity in access.

Fair distribution of educational opportunities among people means that individuals' access to education doesn't depend on conditions beyond their control such as social class, religion, gender, place of birth or other parental characteristics. This paper addresses the issue of inequality of educational opportunities for pre-university education in Egypt using Human Opportunity Index, based on the data of the Income, Expenditure and Consumption Survey 2014/2015 implemented by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics. The paper also uses a logistic regression technique to assess the factors that affect children's educational enrolment. The paper presents several results, the most important one is that primary education in Egypt is fair and equal if compared to preparatory and secondary education in terms of providing educational services. The results of the Logistic Regression (LR) model show that there are many significant variables that affect children's school enrolment i.e. the educational level of the household head and the place of residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Poor countries, such as Sierra Leone, often have poor health outcomes, whereby the majority of the population cannot access lifesaving health services. Access to, and use of, maternal and reproductive health services is crucial for human development, especially in developing regions. However, inequality remains a persistent problem for many developing countries. Moreover, we have not found empirical studies, which have examined inequalities in maternal and reproductive health in Sierra Leone. Method We used data collected from the Sierra Leone Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted in 2008 and 2013. Five maternal and reproductive health indicators were selected for this study, including four or more antenatal care visits, skilled antenatal care provider, births delivered in a facility, births assisted by a skilled birth attendant, and any method of contraception. To measure inequalities, we adopted the Human Opportunity Index (HOI). Using this measure, we measured differentials over the two periods, and decomposed it to measure the contribution of the selected circumstance variables to inequality. Results Inequalities declined over time, as shown by the decrease in the dissimilarity index. Due to the drop in the dissimilarity index, the HOI increased for all the selected maternal and reproductive health indicators. Moreover, antenatal services were closer to equality compared to the other selected services. Overall, we found that household wealth status, maternal education and place of residence, are the most important factors contributing to the inequality in the use of maternal and reproductive health services. Conclusions Even though there are improvements in inequalities over time, there are variations in the way in which inequality within the different indicators has improved. In order to improve the use of maternal and reproductive health services, and to reduce inequalities in these services, the government will have to invest in: (i) increasing the educational levels of women, (ii) improving the standard of living, as well as (iii) bringing maternal and reproductive health services closer to rural populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Access to maternal and child health care in low- and middle-income countries such as Togo is characterized by significant inequalities. Most studies in the Togolese context have examined the total inequality of health and the determinants of individuals’ health. Few empirical studies in Togo have focused on inequalities of opportunity in maternal and child health. To fill this gap, we estimated changes in inequality of opportunity in access to maternal and child health services between 1998 and 2013 using data from Togo Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Method We computed the Human Opportunity Index (HOI)—a measure of how individual, household, and geographic characteristics like sex and place of residence can affect individuals’ access to services or goods that should be universal—using five indicators of access to healthcare and one composite indicator of access to adequate care for children. The five indicators of access were: birth in a public or private health facility; whether the child had received any vaccinations; access to prenatal care; prenatal care given by qualified staff; and having at least four antenatal visits. We then examined differences across the two years. Results Between 1998 and 2013, inequality of opportunities decreased for four out of six indicators. However, inequalities increased in access to antenatal care provided by qualified staff (5.9% to 12.5%) and access to adequate care (27.7% to 28.6%). Conclusions Although inequality of opportunities reduced between 1998 and 2013 for some of the key maternal and child health indicators, the average coverage and access rates underscore the need for sustained efforts to ensure equitable access to primary health care for mothers and children.

Background: Malnutrition among children is a significant public health and development issue, especially in low- and middle-income countries, Malawi inclusive, which contributes to preventable diseases and deaths. Significant socioeconomic disparities persist, which affect access to and equal distribution of basic nutrition. This study analyzed the extent and trends of Inequality of Opportunity (IOP) in the nutritional outcomes of children aged 0-59 months., Methods: The study used nationally representative data from the 2006, 2013-14, and 2019-20 Malawi Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. In terms of method, we examined IOP in stunting, wasting, and underweight indicators, using the Human Opportunity Index and the Dissimilarity Index in 55,723 children. The Shapley-value technique decomposed the relative IOP., Results: We find the largest share of circumstance-driven inequality in stunting (8.96 percent), followed by underweight (1.91 percent), and then wasting (0.90 percent). The Shapley-value decomposition results indicate the child's age (29.15 percent for stunting, 12.42 percent for underweight, and 52.36 percent for wasting) and gender (8.28 percent, 18.36 percent and 8.87 percent), wealth (6.36 percent, 22.87 percent and 8.54 percent), and mother's education (6.28 percent, 11.29 percent and 5.51 percent) as the dominant contributors to IOP for all three nutritional outcome indicators; stunting, underweight and wasting, respectively., Conclusion: The findings suggest that policies aimed at narrowing the wealth and education inequality gap could help equalize nutrition opportunities for children in Malawi., Competing Interests: None., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Building on the current literature that increasingly recognizes inequality of opportunity among children, this paper analyzes to what extent access to basic education and core services is influenced by family and individual background factors in Tunisia. The analysis uses the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) methodology developed recently at the World Bank, and micro data from the National Survey on Households’ Budget, Consumption and Standard of Living (HBCLS) for 2010. The main contribution of the study is its in-depth investigation of the key factors affecting child development in Tunisia. The results reveal large and persistent interregional and intra-regional disparities among children, mainly in pre-secondary school enrollment and access to safe water and sanitation services. Such inequalities of opportunity, obviously shown between inland and littoral regions, are found to be driven mainly by geographic factors and parents” education and wealth. These findings may have important policy implications in term of developing better-targeted interventions aiming to reduce inequality in accessing basic services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Access to maternal and child health care in low- and middle-income countries such as Togo is characterized by significant inequalities. Most studies in the Togolese context have examined the total inequality of health and the determinants of individuals' health. Few empirical studies in Togo have focused on inequalities of opportunity in maternal and child health. To fill this gap, we estimated changes in inequality of opportunity in access to maternal and child health services between 1998 and 2013 using data from Togo Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).Method: We computed the Human Opportunity Index (HOI)-a measure of how individual, household, and geographic characteristics like sex and place of residence can affect individuals' access to services or goods that should be universal-using five indicators of access to healthcare and one composite indicator of access to adequate care for children. The five indicators of access were: birth in a public or private health facility; whether the child had received any vaccinations; access to prenatal care; prenatal care given by qualified staff; and having at least four antenatal visits. We then examined differences across the two years.Results: Between 1998 and 2013, inequality of opportunities decreased for four out of six indicators. However, inequalities increased in access to antenatal care provided by qualified staff (5.9% to 12.5%) and access to adequate care (27.7% to 28.6%).Conclusions: Although inequality of opportunities reduced between 1998 and 2013 for some of the key maternal and child health indicators, the average coverage and access rates underscore the need for sustained efforts to ensure equitable access to primary health care for mothers and children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ensaios FEE is the property of Fundacao de Economia e Estatistica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Providing all children equal access to essential services, such as primary education, has been set as a priority in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)’ agenda during the last two decades. Yet the Global Education Monitoring report in 2016 reveals that wide disparities between the rich and the poor persist in access to education of high quality. This study uses the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) to examine the equality of opportunity in access to basic education of high quality. By using enrollment and admission data from a case study in a large school district in the US in 2015/2016, this research evaluates the capacity of the HOI, in order to reveal disparities in access to school opportunities and examines how much of this inequality is explained by families’ pre-determined circumstances. The way of analyzing equality is by disaggregating applications’ data into circumstance groups, according to gender, geography, race/ethnicity, and other criteria. To capture the contribution of each circumstance to inequality of opportunity, the Shapley decomposition method is used. Findings show that the HOI is capable of systematically monitoring and examining existing admission policies and identifying inequality problems. Furthermore, the analysis of the contribution of each circumstance group can reveal admission criteria that have the potential to harm the educational opportunities for children. This assessment should provide valuable insights into the capability of the indicators to reveal where policy intervention is necessary and supply points of view on how policy can be improved.

In spite of overall improvements in basic and high school education levels in the last decades, and of an increase in the supply of higher education, only 12% of Brazilian youths in the expected age are attending higher education in Brazil, against 21%in Argentina, 65%in the USA and 70% in Sweden. In this study, based on the most recent Pnad data (2013) and on data from ten years earlier (2003, just before the implementation of affirmative action policies), we obtained profiles of vulnerable and nonvulnerable groups in terms of access to higher education in Brazil. Then through the index of human opportunities (Barros et al. 2009), and making use of binary dependent variable regressions, we were able to measure inequality of opportunity in terms of access to higher education for both years. Results indicate that a reallocation of opportunities from nonvulnerable to vulnerable groups has taken place, and that access to higher education has also risen slightly in the course of one decade. However, the index of human opportunity as applied to higher education in Brazil (HOI = 0.281 in 2013) is very far from the ideal situation (HOI=1), which occurs when access is universal and there is no inequality of opportunity in the access. Finally, we have applied a Shapley decomposition to the calculated indices, and the main results are the substantial contribution of household-head’s education level and the household’s income to inequality of opportunity, and also a moderate impact of race.

The universally used socioeconomic indices like education and housing indicators (access to water, sanitation and electricity) appraise solely the coverage level of basic opportunities in a society without capturing the differential intensity across various subgroups. This paper provides a new application of the known Human Opportunity Index (HOI) in order to assess the inequality in distribution of basic services at regional scale in one of the MENA's most unequal countries. Based on the differentiation between circumstance and effort variables in John Roemer's theory, we correlate inequality of opportunities with seven observed circumstances which are not controllable by individuals. Logistic regressions required to calculate various HOI indexes are used to estimate the contribution of main socioeconomic and demographic circumstances. Large and significant disparities particularly in access to safe water and sanitation have been detected between the eastern (littoral) and western (inland) areas. The residence area, the education level of household head and the per capita household expenditure were the most important circumstances causing such regional disparities. The paper affords also some potential policy implications through the HOI estimation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Brazilian Journal of Applied Economics / Economía Aplicada is the property of FEA-RP, Universidade de Sao Paulo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The development of the various skills of an individual can often is associated with unequal access to a set of opportunities during childhood because of the social choices of society to which they belong also to circumstances beyond their control birth. In these terms, and aiming to project long term public policies, in this article was calculated the Human Opportunity Index (HOI), summary indicator of the coverage of basic goods and services for the well-being of the children from pre-determined parameters. Using data from the PNAD of IBGE over the decade from 2000 to the State of Ceara, five indicators were listed considering seven variables educational circumstances. The results show improvements in opportunities for analysis over the period, especially those of school attendance, but deficiencies in literacy at the right age and sanitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which aims to calculate a human opportunity index for Brazilian states to explore the disparities in the country relating to equality of opportunity using logistic regression model.

Basic services which are essential for the overall development of a child should not depend on circumstances such as caste, religion, gender, place of birth, or other parental characteristics, which are beyond his/her control. This paper uses two rounds of Indian National Family Health Surveys and concepts of Inequality of Opportunity and Human Opportunity Indices to measure inequality arising out of unequal coverage of full immunization and minimum nutrition for Indian children. The results suggest overall high level of inequality of opportunity with substantial geographical variations. Changes in inequality of opportunity in the two services during 1992-1993 to 2005-2006 were mixed with some geographical regions outperforming others. The findings also call for substantial policy revisions if the goal of universal full immunization and minimum nutrition has to be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing all children equal access to essential services, such as primary education, has been set as a priority in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)' agenda during the last two decades. Yet the Global Education Monitoring report in 2016 reveals that wide disparities between the rich and the poor persist in access to education of high quality. This study uses the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) to examine the equality of opportunity in access to basic education of high quality. By using enrollment and admission data from a case study in a large school district in the US in 2015/2016, this research evaluates the capacity of the HOI, in order to reveal disparities in access to school opportunities and examines how much of this inequality is explained by families' pre-determined circumstances. The way of analyzing equality is by disaggregating applications' data into circumstance groups, according to gender, geography, race/ethnicity, and other criteria. To capture the contribution of each circumstance to inequality of opportunity, the Shapley decomposition method is used. Findings show that the HOI is capable of systematically monitoring and examining existing admission policies and identifying inequality problems. Furthermore, the analysis of the contribution of each circumstance group can reveal admission criteria that have the potential to harm the educational opportunities for children. This assessment should provide valuable insights into the capability of the indicators to reveal where policy intervention is necessary and supply points of view on how policy can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]