By Takeshi Suzuki.
Why do we have different opportunities, simply depending on where we are born? To what extent should we secure opportunities for all? Who decides what is equal enough?
Why do we have different opportunities, simply depending on where we are born?
This is the burning question which brought me here, to the Institute of Development Studies - To study how we can reduce this inequality.
What makes me interested in inequality of opportunity?
While some of my friends at college had already studied abroad in their high school, I had never gotten the chance to do so until I got to university. I was born in a suburban city in Japan and none of the high schools around me provided any chances to study abroad. Some of you may wonder why I had not looked for other high schools, in different cities or provinces, maybe. At the time, it never occurred to me to look for high schools in other cities or provinces, since no one in my environment had done anything of the sort. Once at university, it shocked me to learn that some people had different opportunities, leading to a disparity in our English language skills at the time.
Furthermore, at university, I got a chance to work at an Internally Displaced People (IDPs) camp in Kachin state, Myanmar, operated by UN agencies and some bilateral donors. IDPs live there because they were forced to leave their original residence due to internal civil wars between the Myanmar Military and the Kachin Independence Army. Access to education for IDPs was very limited: primary education was being provided to children there, but all teachers were basically volunteers, and not all of them had graduated from college. On the other hand, I met some university students in Yangon, one of Myanmar’s biggest cities, who were looking for employment in neighboring countries, where their education could provide them with much better wages. When asked, some of them told me that they had never even met anyone from Kachin.
Contrasting the different opportunities of education people face, the size of the problem becomes clear. It seems very unfair to me that people have different opportunities depending on where they were born. However, at the same time, questions surrounding equality of opportunity always pop up in my head. Perhaps, you have wondered the same thing on occasion, or even just now;
To what extent should we secure opportunities? Who decides what is equal enough?
To what extent should opportunities be equalized?
Roemer (1998) introduces an interesting conceptual framework about the opportunity in his book called “Equality of Opportunity”. He introduces two terminologies; “circumstance” and “effort”. Circumstance refers to preconditions that go beyond one’s control, which are exogenous factors such as gender, race and place of birth. Effort is an individual responsibility for achieving your own goals, as long as said goal is within the same circumstances.
In the context of education achievement (e.g. scores in an exam), for example, it is intuitive to expect everyone having different achievements. However, if some children are from families which cannot afford to buy basic textbooks, the difference in scores can be attributed to circumstance. Therefore, providing financial support is necessary in order to equalize the opportunity. On the other hand, if they have the same textbooks, and thus circumstances, then the different achievements stem from the differences in each one’s effort. Then, it is not necessary to equalize the difference.
Application of Roemer’s Concept
Roemer’s concept gives researchers insights to study how different circumstances affect people’s opportunities. For example, Zoch (2015) conducted his research in South Africa especially focusing on children and adolescents. It is about how their parental background (circumstances) such as income, education, household size and composition affect their opportunities. And it shows that there are disparities in children’s future opportunities, measured in outcomes such as education, health and salaries. Zoch highlights the importance of intervention when children are young, because the research also shows that the inequalities between children persist and worsen as children get older.
Zoch highlights the importance of intervention when children are young, because the research also shows that the inequalities between children persist and worsen as children get older.
What should we do with it?
I believe that the level at which we look at circumstances is crucial. In my case of studying abroad, at a micro level (within my home city), it could be because of the lack of effort on my part to find high schools outside the city, despite having the same circumstances as my peers. On the other hand, at a macro level, within Japan for instance, there could be larger number of high schools in urban cities which provide opportunities to study abroad. In this case, it could be said that different circumstances between my city and the urban areas could affect my opportunity (study abroad).
As for the IDP camp, the circumstance (the civil wars) forces them to live there, so it definitely affects their opportunity (education). However, at a micro level (within IDPs camp) level, it could be said that every child had same opportunity to education in the same circumstance (in same IDPs camp), while they have limited opportunities at a macro level (within Myanmar or even compared to Japan). Intuitively, it is wrong to insist on the redundancy of equalizing their opportunities by looking only at the micro level. At the same time, I ask myself; do they have to have the same education as other students in Yangon, or my peers and I in Japan? Personally, I want everyone to have the same opportunity as everybody else; but is that realistic?
There is no clear way to answer the question above, but at least it seems very important to see the circumstances at different levels when we analyze the inequality of opportunity. I would like to study further how inequality looks different at different levels. The Human Opportunity Index (HOI), for example, was established by the World Bank in 2008 to help governments set policies to equalize people’s opportunities, namely access to basic goods and services. It measures people’s availabilities of services such as education and connection to electricity. It could help us see inequalities of opportunity derived from circumstances at a more macro level.
By Takeshi Suzuki
Takeshi Suzuki is from Japan and has worked for the Japanese bilateral aid agency. He is currently studying MA Poverty and Development at IDS. His personal and professional research interest are in child poverty and inequality.