Inequality of Opportunity in Elementary Level School Education: Evidence from India

Abstract

This article, using the National Sample Survey database, explores the unfair schooling access of Indian children over the time period of 2004–2012, where the unfairness is generated from the differences in the respective caste, sex, religion, parental and other family backgrounds of the children that they can not control by themselves. Adopting the philosophical rubric of inequality of opportunity we find inequality of educational opportunity to be impressively low for Indian children while a timely beginning of schooling is considered, but depicts a sharp rise while we consider a timely finishing of elementary school education. We further find parental education, particularly that of mother’s, to be the most important factor behind the resulting inequality of educational opportunity. Although India shows an unambiguous improvement over the aforementioned time span, our results indicate the necessity of refurbishing school education policies with an emphasis on arresting school dropouts for those born to unfavorable circumstances.