Measuring inequality of opportunity with imperfect data: the case of Turkey

Type Journal Article - Journal of Economic Inequality
Title Measuring inequality of opportunity with imperfect data: the case of Turkey
Author(s)
Volume 9
Issue 4
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2011
Page numbers 651-680
URL http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10888-011-9169-0?LI=true#page-1
Abstract
The measurement of inequality of opportunity has hitherto not been attempted in a number of countries because of data limitations. This paper proposes two alternative approaches to circumventing the missing data problems in countries where a demographic and health survey (DHS) and an ancillary household expenditure survey are available. One method relies only on the DHS, and constructs a wealth index as a measure of economic advantage. The alternative method imputes consumption from the ancillary survey into the DHS. In both cases, we compute a lower bound estimator of the share of (ex-ante) inequality of opportunity in total inequality. Parametric and non-parametric estimates are calculated for each method, and the parametric approach is shown to yield preferable lower-bound measures. In an application to the sample of ever-married women aged 30–49 in Turkey, inequality of opportunity accounts for at least 26% (31%) of overall inequality in imputed consumption (the wealth index).

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