Inequality of opportunity in India

Abstract

The paper associates inequality of opportunities with outcome differences that can be accounted by pre-determined circumstances which lie beyond the control of an individual, such as parental education, parental occupation, caste, religion and place of birth. The overall opportunity share estimates (parametric) of total consumption expenditure inequality due to a set of circumstances comprising of caste, religion, geographical region, parental education and parental occupation vary from 16% to 25% in urban India. The corresponding figures for rural areas stand at 20% and 23%. The analysis further reveals that, parental education is the major contributor to the opportunity share of consumption expenditure inequality in urban India, but caste and geographical region also play an equally important role when rural India is considered.Inequality of opportunity; consumption expenditure inequality; India