Inequality of Opportunity in Health in Indonesia

Whereas health equity issues are undoubtedly more relevant in developing countries, research on healthinequalities and, more specifically, on inequality of opportunity in the health dimension, remains scarce in this context. This paper explores the degree of inequality of opportunity in health in a developing country, using the 2007 Indonesian Family Life Survey, a large-scale survey with extremely rich information about individualhealth outcomes (biomarkers and self-reports) and individual circumstances.We compute a continuous synthetic index of global health status based on a comprehensive set of healthindicators and subsequently implement non-parametric and parametric methods in order to quantify the level ofinequality of opportunity in the health dimension. Our results show large inequality of opportunities in health inIndonesia, compared to European countries. Concerning transmission mechanisms, parental (particularly maternal) vital status appears as the main channel. Compared to what has been observed in more developed countries, the effect of parental education on health is relatively smaller, and mainly indirect (passing through descendants' socioeconomic, marital and migration statuses), while the existence of long-term differences in health related to religion, language spoken and particularly province of location suggest a relatively higher relevance of community belonging variables for health equity in the context of a developing country asIndonesia.