IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hdr/papers/hdrp-2010-35.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measurement of Inequality In Human Development - A Review

Author

Listed:
  • Milorad Kovacevic

Abstract

It is widely accepted that country-averages of income, literacy, life expectancy and other indicators conceal widespread human deprivation and inequality. The measures of human development based on these indicators are also averages, and therefore mask disparities in the overall population. While the Human Development Index (HDI) itself is well accepted as a summary measure of HD capabilities and achievements, there is no a consensus about how to measure inequality in the HD distribution within a country. The conceptual difficulties, as well as the lack of appropriate disaggregated data, are customarily given as major obstacles for not adjusting the HDI for inequality. The objective of this paper is to first review some recent developments in measuring inequality in the distribution of multidimensional indices such as the HDI, and second - to present a practical implementation of the Alkire and Foster (2010) adaptation of the Foster, Lopez-Calva, Szekely (2005) method. The paper will first attempt to summarize the normative issues around the importance of accounting for inequality in opportunities for and outcomes of human development. Then it will review different approaches to accounting for inequality when quantifying HD. A special emphasis is placed on data requirements for each of the approaches. Consequently, data availability for the disaggregated analysis in the international context is thoroughly examined. Ease of interpretation is an important consideration. Finally, the paper describes the inequality-adjusted HDI and provides its limited sensitivity analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Milorad Kovacevic, 2010. "Measurement of Inequality In Human Development - A Review," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2010-35, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    • Handle: RePEc:hdr:papers:hdrp-2010-35
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/papers/HDRP_2010_35.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1552 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. François Bourguignon & Francisco H. G. Ferreira & Marta Menéndez, 2007. "Inequality Of Opportunity In Brazil," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 53(4), pages 585-618, December.
    3. Francisco H. G. Ferreira & Jérémie Gignoux, 2011. "The Measurement Of Inequality Of Opportunity: Theory And An Application To Latin America," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 57(4), pages 622-657, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Djavad Salehi-Isfahani & Nadia Belhaj Hassine, 2012. "Equality of Opportunity in Education in the Middle East and North Africa," Working Papers e07-33, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Pedro Salas-Rojo & Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2022. "Inheritances and wealth inequality: a machine learning approach," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(1), pages 27-51, March.
    3. Michał Brzeziński, 2015. "Inequality of opportunity in Europe before and after the Great Recession," Working Papers 2015-02, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    4. Dirk Van de gaer & Joost Vandenbossche & José Luis Figueroa, 2014. "Children's Health Opportunities and Project Evaluation: Mexico's Oportunidades Program," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 28(2), pages 282-310.
    5. Paolo Brunori & Francisco Ferreira & Maria Ana Lugo & Vito Peragine, 2013. "Opportunity-sensitive poverty measurement," Working Papers 317, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    6. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Peragine, Vito, 2015. "Equality of Opportunity: Theory and Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 8994, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Vincenzo Carrieri & Apostolos Davillas & Andrew M. Jones, 2023. "Equality of opportunity and the expansion of higher education in the UK," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(4), pages 861-885, December.
    8. Ana Suárez Álvarez & Ana Jesús López Menéndez, 2018. "Assessing Changes Over Time in Inequality of Opportunity: The Case of Spain," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 989-1014, October.
    9. Luis Armando Galvis-Aponte & Adolfo Meisel-Roca, 2016. "Aspectos Regionales de la Movilidad Social y la Igualdad de Oportunidades en Colombia," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, vol. 17(2), pages 257-297, February.
    10. Yang, Xiuna & Gustafsson, Björn & Sicular, Terry, 2021. "Inequality of opportunity in household income, China 2002–2018," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    11. Maurizio Bussolo & Daniele Checchi & Vito Peragine, 2018. "The long term evolution of inequality of opportunity," LIS Working papers 730, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    12. Marc Fleurbaey & Vito Peragine, 2013. "Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Equality of Opportunity," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(317), pages 118-130, January.
    13. Vito Peragine & Flaviana Palmisano & Paolo Brunori, 2014. "Economic Growth and Equality of Opportunity," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 28(2), pages 247-281.
    14. Song, Yang & Zhou, Guangsu, 2019. "Inequality of opportunity and household education expenditures: Evidence from panel data in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 85-98.
    15. Shi, X., 2018. "Inequality of Opportunity in Earnings in Rural China," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277016, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Paolo Brunori & Flaviana Palmisano & Vitorocco Peragine, 2019. "Inequality of opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(60), pages 6428-6458, December.
    17. Rafael Carranza, 2023. "Upper and Lower Bound Estimates of Inequality of Opportunity: A Cross‐National Comparison for Europe," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(4), pages 838-860, December.
    18. François Bourguignon & Francisco H. G. Ferreira & Marta Menéndez, 2013. "Inequality of Opportunity in Brazil: A Corrigendum," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(3), pages 551-555, September.
    19. Niehues, Judith & Peichl, Andreas, 2011. "Lower and Upper Bounds of Unfair Inequality: Theory and Evidence for Germany and the US," IZA Discussion Papers 5834, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Singh, Ashish, 2010. "Inequality of opportunity in India," MPRA Paper 32971, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Human development index; multidimensional inequality; micro data; aversion to inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • I0 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • C8 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hdr:papers:hdrp-2010-35. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: HDRO/UNDP (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hdundus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.