Do Pakistani Kids Have An Equal Chance? A Study of Inequality of Human Opportunities for Kids in Pakistan.

Nizamani, Sarah and Waheed, Muhammad Shahid (2020): Do Pakistani Kids Have An Equal Chance? A Study of Inequality of Human Opportunities for Kids in Pakistan.

Abstract

This study aims to measure inequality of opportunities among kids in Pakistan at a provincial level for two sets of household data (2004-2005 and 2014-2015) from Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey. The World Bank methodology of measuring the inequality of opportunities Human Opportunity Index (HOI) is used to measure the access to basic services in the country. In total seventeen opportunities are chosen to measure from education, health and infrastructure indicators and are adjusted for inequality caused due to exogenous factors (circumstances) of a child. The decomposition of the Dissimilarity index is obtained with the help of Shapely Decomposition. The findings of the study show that access to these basic services is inequitable and low on all Pakistan level. The HOI for all five-education indicators has deteriorated all over Pakistan and inequality in education is the worst in the province of Sindh, the reason behind this is low literacy rates of head of the household of a child. The province of Baluchistan has suffered the worst in infrastructure indicators and the state of education in the province is worrisome too. The location dummy (rural/urban), education of head of the household and income of the household were the most important circumstance variables influencing the inequitable access to the services. There is overall improvement noted in the health indicators but despite the improvement, Pakistan is long way from universal coverage of health facilities.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: : Human Opportunity Index, Inequality of opportunity, basic services, children, Shapley decomposition
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O18 - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis ; Housing ; Infrastructure; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O43 - Institutions and Growth

References

Easterly, W. (2003). The political economy of growth without development: A case study of Pakistan. In In D. Rodrik (Ed.), In search of. Kochendörfer-Lucius, G., & Pleskovic, B. (Eds.). (2006). Equity and development (Vol. 2006). World Bank Publications. Newman, J. (2012). Human Opportunity Index-Provinces: Equality of Children's Opportunities in Pakistan. Paes de Barros, R., Ferreira, F., Vega, J. M., & Chanduvi, J. S. Measuring Inequality of Opportunity in Latin America and the Caribbean, The World Bank, Washington DC., 2009. Jose R. Molinas Vega, and Jaime Saavedra,“Measuring inequality of Opportunities for Children,” in “Measuring Inequality Of Opportunity in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2. Ra,m, M., Tian, B., Nizamani, B., Das, A., Bhutto, N., & Ahmed Junejo, N. (2020). Causes and Consequences of Child Labor in Sindh: A Study from Hyderabad Pakistan [Ebook]. New York Science Journal 2019;12(8). Retrieved 19 February 2020, from . http://www.sciencepub.net/newyork. Soremekun, O., Oyeyinka, O., & Haughton, D. (2016). Sustainable Development and Inequality of Opportunity in Africa. In Sustainable Industrialization in Africa (pp. 173-199). Palgrave Macmillan, London.