Inequality of opportunity for income in five countries of Africa

Purpose: This paper examines for the first time inequality of opportunity for income in Africa, by analyzing large-sample surveys, all providing information on individuals’ parental background, in five comparable Sub-Saharan countries: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, and Uganda. Methodology/approach: We compute inequality of opportunity indexes in keeping with the main proposals in the literature, and propose a decomposition of between-country differences that distinguishes the respective impacts of intergenerational mobility between social origins and positions, of the distribution of education and occupations, and of the earnings structure. Findings: Among our five countries, Ghana in 1988 has by far the lowest income inequality between individuals of different social origins, while Madagascar in 1993 displays the highest. Ghana in 1998, Ivory Coast in 1985–1988, Guinea in 1994, and Uganda in 1992 stand in-between. Decompositions reveal that the two former British colonies (Ghana and Uganda) share a much higher intergenerational educational and occupational mobility than the three former French colonies. Further, Ghana distinguishes itself from the four other countries, because of the combination of widespread secondary schooling, low returns to education, and low income dualism against agriculture. Nevertheless, it displays marked regional inequality insofar as being born in the Northern part of this country produces a significant restriction of income opportunities. Originality/value of paper: By providing the first figures for five countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, this paper allows enlarging the sample of international comparisons in the study of inequality of opportunity. It also reveals some suggestive evidence regarding the long-term origin of intergenerational mobility differences, and in particular the colonial legacy of school extension and of dualism against agriculture.