Equality of opportunity in four measures of well-being

By:	Xavier Ramos Morilla (Departament d’Economia Aplicada, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona); Daniel Gerszon Mahler (World Bank)
Abstract:	A growing literature has tried to measure the extent to which individuals have equal opportunities to acquire income. At the same time, policymakers have doubled down on e orts to go beyond income when designing policies to enhance well-being. We attempt to bridge these two areas by measuring the extent to which individuals have equal opportunities to achieve a high level of well-being. We use the German Socio-Economic Panel to measure well-being in four di erent ways including incomes. This makes it possible to determine if the way well-being is measured matters for identifying who the opportunity-deprived are and for tracking inequality of opportunity over time. We find that, regardless of how well-being is measured, the same people are opportunity-deprived and equality of opportunity has improved over the past 10 years. This suggests that going beyond income has little relevance if the objective is to provide equal opportunities.
Keywords:	Equality of opportunity, measurement, responsibility, e ort, well-being
JEL:	D3 D63 I31
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uab:wprdea:wpdea1803&r=ltv