2011年-世界发展银行全球_Inequality_of_Opportunities_Among_Children___How_Much_Does_Gender_Matter__25页_955kb

Summary of the Document: Inequality of Opportunities Among Children – How Much Does Gender Matter?

Core Content

This document examines the role of gender in contributing to inequality of opportunities among children, particularly in access to education and health services. It uses the Human Opportunity Index (HOI), a measure developed by the World Bank, to assess how much gender influences the distribution of opportunities, relative to other exogenous factors like economic status and location.

Main Viewpoints

• HOI Definition: The Human Opportunity Index (HOI) is a metric that evaluates how equitably basic services (such as education and immunization) are distributed among children. It is defined as the average coverage rate of a service adjusted by a penalty (D-index) due to inequality in access across different circumstance groups.

• Inequality of Opportunity: Inequality of opportunity is defined as the extent to which a child's access to basic services is influenced by factors beyond their control, such as gender, household wealth, location, and parental characteristics.

• Gender's Role: The document finds that, on average and for most countries, gender contributes relatively little to inequality of opportunity. It is often outstripped by factors such as economic status and location.

• Shapley Decomposition: A Shapley decomposition method is used to quantify the contribution of each circumstance (e.g., gender, wealth, location) to the D-index. This method ensures that the contributions of all circumstances sum up to 100%, providing a fair and systematic way to attribute inequality to specific factors.

• Sector-Specific Inequality: Inequality in access to opportunities is correlated across sectors, particularly in education and health. For instance, gender's influence is more pronounced in some countries for certain opportunities.

Key Findings

• Education:

  • For 6-11 year olds, gender contributes approximately 10% to the D-index on average.
  • For 12-15 year olds, gender contributes about 14% on average.
  • In 12 out of 47 countries, gender contributes 20% or more to inequality in school attendance among 12-15 year olds.
  • In 8 out of 32 countries with moderate or high inequality, gender contributes one-fifth or more of the D-index.
  • Household wealth is the most significant contributor to inequality in school attendance, accounting for at least 50% of the D-index in 29 out of 47 countries.

• Health (Immunization):

  • For measles immunization, the average contribution of gender is 11%.
  • For polio immunization, the average contribution is 13%.
  • In 7 out of 16 countries with moderate inequality in measles immunization, gender contributes 20% or more.
  • In only one out of 32 countries with high inequality in measles or polio immunization, gender contributes more than 20% to the D-index.
  • Location and wealth are consistently more important than gender in explaining inequality in immunization.

• General Trends:

  • Gender's contribution is typically low, especially in countries with high inequality in access to services.
  • Wealth and location are more significant contributors to inequality than gender.
  • The D-index (inequality of opportunity) tends to be lower for immunization than for education, despite higher coverage in education.

Methodology

• The HOI is calculated using a logistic regression model to estimate the conditional probability of access to an opportunity based on child and household characteristics.
• The D-index is derived from the difference between the average coverage rate and the coverage rates of different circumstance groups.
• The Shapley decomposition is applied to estimate the contribution of each circumstance to the D-index, ensuring that the contributions sum to 100%.
• The analysis is based on DHS data from 47 countries between 2003 and 2010, using four key indicators: school attendance and immunization rates for specific age groups.

Conclusion

The study concludes that gender plays a relatively minor role in inequality of opportunities among children, especially in education and health. While it does have a notable impact in a few countries, household wealth and location are more significant contributors to inequality. The HOI framework, combined with Shapley decomposition, provides a robust method to measure and decompose the extent of inequality, highlighting the importance of considering multiple exogenous factors in policy design to ensure equitable access to opportunities.