Measuring opportunity*

Abstract

In American political discourse, a distinction is often made between inequality of condition and inequality of opportunity. The former involves the distribution of valued rewards in society, while the latter has to do with access to these rewards. In terms of scientific work, much more progress has been made on the study of inequality of condition than on the study of inequality of opportunity. This paper proposes an approach to defining and measuring inequality of opportunity that avoids many of the problems found in previous research. In particular, my method: (1) is consistent with contemporary usage of the opportunity concept, (2) differentiates opportunity from outcome, in that opportunity is defined as the chance of achieving a goal, (3) takes into account the fact that people have different chances of developing certain goals, and (4) allows the measurement of inequality of opportunity at both the individual and group levels. The approach is illustrated utilizing occupational data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. The empirical analysis reveals less inequality of occupational opportunity than inequality of income, somewhat more inequality of occupational opportunity among men than women, and more occupational opportunity among women than men.