Do Children Play on a Level Playing Field? Measuring Inequality of Opportunity in Bangladesh

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This article attempts to measure the inequality of opportunity in basic education, health, infrastructure and documentation services among children in Bangladesh at the division level based on two waves (2011 and 2015) of data from the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey. The analysis applies a methodology called the Human Opportunity Index (HOI), which measures the total contribution of individual socio-economic and demographic circumstances to inequality of opportunity in accessing basic services. The novelty of this article is the use of household surveys and decomposition techniques to understand the scale and distribution effects over time. The change in the HOI between the two periods has been decomposed into a scale effect (coverage) and a distribution effect (equity). Much of the increase is due to the scale effect and not so much due to the distribution effect. Results of the empirical analysis indicate that opportunities to access basic services in the seven divisions vary widely in terms of availability and distribution, ranging from 67% in Dhaka to 55% in Sylhet. Of the four dimensions studied in this article (i.e., education, health, housing and identification document), the HOI is highest for health at 80% and lowest for education at 43%. Over the 4 years, there has been a 10% increase in the overall opportunity index of the country, which stood at 64% in 2015. The index will therefore allow policymakers to track the country’s progress over time in improving the distribution of certain basic opportunities to children.