Measuring Inequality of Opportunity for the Backward Communities: Regional Evidence from the Indian Labour Market

The affirmative action policy for socially and economically backward communities in employment has been a debated issue in India. In this context, this paper aims to analyze the level of inequality by distinguishing between ‘circumstance’ and ‘effort’ factors in the Roemer’s framework on equality of opportunity. We measure inequality of opportunities due to two circumstances: caste and religion. Our empirical analysis, at state-level, utilizes a recent household survey data, which provides information related to efforts as well as circumstances of workers. The paper estimated inequality in the labour market and then decomposed it to know the circumstances that cause income inequality. Our estimates indicated that inequality and inequality of opportunity is substantially higher in India. Specifically, the outcome of our analysis evidently indicated that the socially backward communities do have economically disadvantageous position in some of the Indian states. However, the degree of circumstances based on inequality varies to a great extent among the states. Therefore, we suggest that the country does not need a nation-level affirmative action policy instead a state-level policy could be more appropriate as the intensity of the problem differ significantly among the Indian states.     

Shares of Housework Between Mothers,Fathers and Young People: Routine and Non-routine Housework,Doing Housework for Oneself and Others

This study applies wavelet coherency analysis to examine the relationship between the U.S. per capita real GDP and six income inequality measures over the period 1917 to 2012. Wavelet analysis allows the simultaneous examination of correlation and causality between the two series in both the time and frequency domains. Our findings provide robust evidence of positive correlation between the growth and inequality across frequencies. Yet, directions of causality vary across frequencies and evolve with time. Evidence that inequality leads per capita real GDP at both high- and low-frequencies exists for the Top 1 and 10% measures of inequality with little evidence that real GDP per capita leads inequality. In the time-domain, the time-varying nature of long-run causalities implies structural changes in the two series. These findings provide a more thorough picture of the relationship between the U.S. per capita real GDP and inequality measures over time and frequency, suggesting important implications for policy makers.     

Using the Shapley Decomposition to Disentangle the Impact of Circumstances and Efforts on Health Inequality

Following previous work on inequality in health opportunity, this paper attempts to determine the contribution of circumstances, efforts and lifestyle, and demographic variables to the overall inequality in health in Luxembourg. Health is measured via the answers given to a question on self-assessed health and is considered as an ordinal variable. The educational level of each parent, the financial situation of the family during childhood, the area of birth of the individual, and of his/her parents, and the year of immigration are considered as circumstances. Effort and lifestyle variables are proxied by information on the educational level of the individual, whether he/she smoked and whether he/she had a physical activity on a regular basis. Sex and age are considered as demographic variables. To solve the issue of correlation between circumstances and effort and lifestyle the estimation is implemented in two stages. In the first stage, each effort and lifestyle variable is regressed in a separate equation against the vector of circumstances and demographic variables and, in a second stage, the individual health status is regressed against the vector of circumstances and demographic variables along with the estimated residuals of the effort equations described previously. The respective impacts of the three categories of explanatory variables (circumstances, effort and lifestyle and demographic variables) on health inequality are derived via a Shapley decomposition of the likelihood ratio of the health ordered logit regression. It appears that differences in circumstances and effort and lifestyle explain each around a quarter of this likelihood ratio.     

Differences in the process of earnings determination and inequality between women and men in South Korea

Women have increasingly participated in the labor force in South Korea over the past thirty years. Making up 30% of the labor force in 1960, they grew to comprise 47% by 1990. The economic status of female workers has also improved relative to men; the percentage of female wages to male wages increased from 44.1 in 1971 to 53.5 in 1990. Against this historical backdrop, the author examines the process of earnings determination of workers and assesses the explanatory power of human capital and sex segregation theory on earnings inequality between women and men in the South Korean labor market. This is done by analyzing the 1977-90 waves of the Occupational Wage Survey, a pooled cross-section and time series data set for all non-agricultural occupations. Two separate regressions for men and women are estimated using two-stage weighted least squares methods. It is found after analysis that education and tenure have positive effects on logged earnings. Employment in occupations with greater numbers of women tends to lower workers' earnings regardless of their sex, but women are penalized to a four times greater extent than men for working with other women in occupations. Sex segregation becomes insignificant in lowering women's earnings level when occupational groups are controlled. Finally, the inequality in earnings between genders decreased over the period 1977-90 during which women's earnings increased more than those of men.     

Iran’s Multi-ethnic Mosaic: A 23-Year Perspective

In this study, we embark on measuring inequality in Iran. We compute three measures of group-based inequality (Group-weighted Coefficient of Variation, Group-weighted Gini, and Group-weighted Theil) for the following outcomes: education, assets, income, and expenditure per capita. The groups are defined based on gender, ethnicity/language (Persian, Azeri, and other ethnic minorities), and region (urban versus rural and capital city versus other places) using 23 years of annual Household Expenditure and Income Surveys from 1990 through 2012. Inequality between groups based on religion (Muslim, non-Muslim), citizenship (Iranian, non-Iranian) are also studied using the 2006 census. Our analysis of the trend of horizontal inequality reveals substantial reduction in between-group inequalities over the 1990–2012 period. Yet, gender based income inequality remains high. The implications and underlying reasons for these results are discussed.

     

Explaining levels of within-group wage inequality in U.S. labor markets

Most research on earnings inequality has focused on the growing gap between workers of different races and at different education, age, and income levels, but a large portion of the increasing inequality has actually occurred within these groups. This article focuses on the extent and sources of "within-group" wage inequality in more than 500 labor markets in the United States in 1990. In addition to documenting that within-group wage inequality across regions varies more widely today than over the past several decades, the analysis reveals that two frequently cited explanations of rising wage inequality over time have little impact on within-group wage inequality when measured at the local labor market level: (1) industrial shifts and (2) increased technology and trade. By contrast, flexible and insecure employment conditions (e.g., unemployment, contingent work, and immigration) are associated strongly with high local levels of within-group wage inequality, especially among women.     

Inequality in Life Spans and a New Perspective on Mortality Convergence Across Industrialized Countries

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed substantial convergence in life expectancy around the world. We examine differences in the age pattern of mortality in industrialized countries over time to show that inequality in adult life spans, which we measure with the standard deviation of life table ages at death above age 10 years, S₁₀, is increasingly responsible for the remaining divergence in mortality. We report striking differences in level and trend of S₁₀ across industrialized countries since 1960, which cannot be explained by aggregate socioeconomic inequality or differential external‐cause mortality. Rather, S₁₀ reflects both within‐ and between‐group inequalities in life spans and conveys new information about their combined magnitudes and trends. These findings suggest that the challenge for health policies in this century is to reduce inequality, not just lengthen life.     

The Poverty-Growth-Inequality Triangle: Asia 1960s to 2010s

The main objective of this paper is to disentangle the poverty-growth-inequality triangle for Asia, its sub-regions and individual economies by constructing poverty and inequality profiles, decomposing poverty changes and modelling inequality. Due to a shortage of unit record data, analytical techniques are developed for estimating the poverty headcount ratio and regional inequality with minimum data requirements. Analytical results confirm significant reductions in poverty across the board due to fast growth, although the benign effect of growth on poverty was offset by worsening distributions in many economies. Furthermore, the poverty-reducing effect of growth has been diminishing over time and converging to 0 for many countries. Also, the cost of rising inequality in Asia was found to be surprisingly large in terms of missed poverty reduction. Looking ahead, Asia is expected to eradicate abject poverty soon but likely to continue facing high inequality, particularly income gaps between economies.

     

Determinants of Female Labor Force Participation in South Korea: Tracing out the U-shaped Curve by Economic Growth

This paper attempts to investigate the structural relationship between economic growth and female labor force participation in Korea. The recurring issue of whether women’s integration to the society is critical becomes salient once again, but with little consideration of its meaning and potential consequences. It extends further the research theme that the degree of female labor force participation relies on the extent to which social context is reflected in the time-series data for the country from 1980 to 2014. While multiple theories are being espoused in this research, effects traced across levels of analysis and over substantial temporality lead up to a system of dynamic causal relationships, using contingency table and log-linear analysis. It appears to be supported in the regression analysis that the country travels through the U-shaped curve over time whereas income inequality displays greater impact on women’s employment. The empirical estimates of social transformation credit this trend to family structure and wife’s education, as the second pivot that, at least, noneconomic causal factors are also operative.     

Multidimensional Analysis of Regional Inequality: The case of Hungary

Hungary has been in a transition process since the fall of the IronCurtain. This process has resulted in important developments in regionalpolicy. The introduction of a western style policy system seems,however, not to have affected regional inequality to any noticeableextent as measured by income per captia. There are still largedisparities between the richest counties and the remaining counties interms of this indicator. However, single indicator approaches toregional inequality have been criticised. Therefore in this paper weadopt a multidimensional approach to analyse regional inequality. Forthe counties of Hungary the multidimensionality of inequality is takeninto account by using a multiple of social and economic indicators thatare combined into a composite index. Theil's second measure ofmultidimensional inequality and principal component analysis are used toconstruct the composite index. The results thus obtained are used toidentify the least-favoured and the most-favoured regions. We find thatthere are substantial differences between the single indicator approachbased on per capita income and the multidimensional approach. Moreover,we argue that the EU Phare Programmes for Hungary have helped theeconomic development in developed regions situated on the EU border butat the same time have stimulated disparities within Hungary.     

Social Class Inequality in Mortality From 1921 to 1972 in England and Wales

In this paper the data on occupational and social class mortality published decennially for England and Wales are used to examine the trend in the size of class differentials in mortality from 1921 to 1972 for adult men, married women and infants. Using summary measures which take into account changes in the relative sizes of the social classes over time, it was found that absolute inequality in mortality increased among adult men and married women during the 1950s and 1960s and relative inequality increased for all three groups. Two widely recognized potential sources of error, changes in the occupational composition of the social classes over time, and discrepancies between the numerators and denominators of occupation-specific death rates are examined to determine their effect on the trend indicated, and the initial findings are confirmed. Finally, the possible causes and implications of rising inequality coincident with declining overall levels of mortality, relative affluence, and the uniform availability of basic medical services to all socio-economic sub-groups of the population are considered.     

Longevity and Lifespan Variation by Educational Attainment in Spain: 1960–2015

For a long time, studies of socioeconomic gradients in health have limited their attention to between-group comparisons. Yet, ignoring the differences that might exist within groups and focusing on group-specific life expectancy levels and trends alone, one might arrive at overly simplistic conclusions. Using data from the Spanish Encuesta Sociodemográfica and recently released mortality files by the Spanish Statistical Office (INE), this is the first study to simultaneously document (1) the gradient in life expectancy by educational attainment groups, and (2) the inequality in age-at-death distributions within and across those groups for the period between 1960 and 2015 in Spain. Our findings suggest that life expectancy has been increasing for all education groups but particularly among the highly educated. We observe diverging trends in life expectancy, with the differences between the low- and highly educated becoming increasingly large, particularly among men. Concomitantly with increasing disparities across groups, length-of-life inequality has decreased for the population as a whole and for most education groups, and the contribution of the between-group component of inequality to overall inequality has been extremely small. Even if between-group inequality has increased over time, its contribution has been too small to have sizable effects on overall inequality. In addition, our results suggest that education expansion and declining within-group variability might have been the main drivers of overall lifespan inequality reductions. Nevertheless, the diverging trends in longevity and lifespan inequality across education groups represent an important phenomenon whose underlying causes and potential implications should be investigated in detail.     

农村出生性别比失衡的社会性别分析

近年来中国人口出生性别比持续攀升。已有的人口学研究,一般从经济发展水平、传统生育观念以及社会保障等方面分析性别比失衡的原因,忽视了男女不平等对性别比失衡的影响。运用社会性别分析方法,分析农村事实上的男女不平等对性别比失衡的重要影响,进而提出要想解决性别比失衡问题,社会必须更加关注女性的发展。     

Does Horizontal Inequality Matter in Vietnam?

This paper examines the issue of horizontal inequalities in Vietnam over the past 20 years. Using data from three recent Vietnam population censuses (1989, 1999, and 2009) and three Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys (1998, 2008, 2012), we estimated numerous measures on inequalities between five groups against four welfare indicators. Our results show that horizontal inequality matters in Vietnam, in particular for ethnicity, region, and rural/urban groups. While there has been an improvement in horizontal inequality in education, this paper shows little change in other welfare indicators, in particular poverty. We also found that horizontal inequality does matter for poverty reduction in Vietnam and it needs more attention when designing poverty policies in the future.

     

Educational Assortative Mating and Income Inequality in Denmark

Many writers have expressed a concern that growing educational assortative mating will lead to greater inequality between households in their earnings or income. In this article, we examine the relationship between educational assortative mating and income inequality in Denmark between 1987 and 2006. Denmark is widely known for its low level of income inequality, but the Danish case provides a good test of the relationship between educational assortative mating and inequality because although income inequality increased over the period we consider, educational homogamy declined. Using register data on the exact incomes of the whole population, we find that change in assortative mating increased income inequality but that these changes were driven by changes in the educational distributions of men and women rather than in the propensity for people to choose a partner with a given level of education.     

Changes in world inequality in length of life: 1970–2000

Previous research has revealed much global convergence over the past several decades in life expectancy at birth and in infant mortality, which are closely linked. But trends in the variance of length of life, and in the variance of length of adult life in particular, are less well understood. I examine life-span inequality in a comprehensive panel of 180 countries observed in 1970 and 2000. Convergence in infant mortality has unambiguously reduced world inequality in total length of life starting from birth, but world inequality in length of adult life has remained largely unchanged. Underlying both of these observations is a growing share of total inequality attributable to between-country variation. Especially among developed countries, the absolute level of between-country inequality has risen over time. The sources of widening inequality in length of life between countries remain unclear, but signs point away from changes in income, leaving patterns of knowledge diffusion as a likely candidate.     

Patterns of inter- and intra-regional inequality: A socio-economic approach

The regional development pattern of five regions, viz., North, South, Tropical America, Tropical Asia and Tropical Africa [see Theil (1989)] is studied using two indices based on a group of representative socio-economic indicators. The analysis is based on measures of ‘inequality’ and ‘mobility’. Comparison of results using these indices and the Per Capita Gross Domestic Product (PCGDP) reveals that while the situation with respect to PCGDP has worsened over the years, that with respect to the socio-economic indicators has become better.     

我国城乡居民收入差距的影响因素分析

本文对我国城乡居民收入差距的主要解释变量作了定量研究,认为农业与二、三产业比较劳动生产率的不断扩大是造成城乡收入差距不断扩大的最重要原因,农村居民与城市居民人力资本的差距拉大是根本的原因,过去若干年来所推进的就业结构转变和城市化,客观上起到了拉大城乡收入差距的作用,而政府财政支出对城乡差距的扩大起到了一定的遏制效果。本文对这种现象进行了理论解释,提出了政府在城乡政策制定上应注意把握的问题。     

The Decomposition of Economic Outcomes as a Result of Changes in Brazil’s Male Age–Education Structure

In Brazil, the age and education compositions of the male labor force is changing with great regional variation. Based on Demographic Census microdata, results indicate that cohort size has a negative impact on earnings, but this effect is decreasing over time. In this study we consider the impact on earnings by age and education, as well as estimated income inequality reduction and racial differentials. Fertility decline and improve regarding educational attainment had a significant influence on the decline of income inequality in the country. Moreover, the non-white population has been experiencing less success in relation to educational achievement, compared to the white population.