Inequality of Opportunities: The Role of the Spatial Factor

Abstract

The concept of equal opportunities was shaped on the back of western social philosophy at the end of the XX century as a result of the development of egalitarian theory of social justice. According to it, the determinants of individual achievements should be divided into two categories: ‘circumstances’, which individual has no control on, and ‘efforts’, which individuals should be responsible for. Our research deals with measuring opportunity inequality in the Russian Federation and its regions. The regions of the Russian Federation are well known to be very heterogeneous, consequently, the variation of their social and economic indicators is significant. As a result, the level of opportunity inequality may fluctuate significantly among the regions. Our research is designed to test the hypothesis. The analysis is based on the data from the survey ‘Survey of Income and Participation in Social Programs’ conducted by the Federal state statistics service of the Russian Federation. The estimation technique is parametric and based on the ex-ante definition of equality of opportunity. The mean logarithmic deviation is used as inequality index. According to our calculations, the contribution of opportunity inequality to the labor income inequality in Russia is approximately 30%. Spatial factors (region of residence and type of settlement) are responsible for nearly 70% of opportunity inequality. Absolute level of opportunity inequality varies widely among regions – from 0,0117 to 0,0547 in 2017. The contribution of opportunity inequality to inequality of labor income ranges from 7,24 to 27,35% in 2017 across regions. The growth of opportunity inequality is shown to be correlated with the decrease of the economic development rate and the increase of labor income inequality