poverty and for i equal opportunity and equalities of outcomes€¦ · equal opportunity and...

COMBATING POVERTY AND INEQUALITY Structural Change, Social Policy and Politics

UNITED NATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Ilcheong Yi

Research Coordinator UNRISD

Making Institutional Complementarity for

Equal Opportunity and Equalities of Outcomes

Expert Group Meeting on “Social Development and Agenda 2030” (New York, 21 – 27 October 2015)

Division for Social Policy and Development (DSPD) United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)

Contents

1. Introduction : Opportunities and Challenges of

Reducing Inequalities

2. Examining Target 10.3: Equal Opportunities and

Inequalities in Outcomes

3. Suggestions for Policies and Institutions for SDGs

4. Issues for Further Discussion

United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) 2

1. Introduction

• Moral consensus on the importance of reducing inequality

• The Agenda answering the question of “Equality

of What?” ! : “ensure equal opportunity” and “reduce inequalities of outcome”

• An aspiration to be detailed and specified to link

the Target 10.3 to other goals and targets and hence, make a coherent framework of SDGs


2. Examining Target 10.3 1. Equal opportunity

• Polysemy of equal opportunity: Meritocracy, same chance to be successful, a level playing field etc.

• Diverse understandings of opportunity: What constitutes opportunity?; What opportunity is for; and What determines the creation of opportunity?

• WCO question WOF question WDCO question


SDGs etc etc..

Institutions, Policies, Actors, Processes (Target 10.2 (political inclusion) and Target 10.6 (enhanced representation and voice for developing countries )

Resources, personal talents, efforts, and circumstances

2. Examining Target 10.3 2. the nature or substance of outcomes

• In which outcomes should inequalities be reduced by public policies?

• Competing understandings of sources of inequalities in outcome as policy tasks

• e.g. Liberatarian approach vs. Egalitarian approach


Target 4.2 ensure access of all girls and boys to quality early childhood development Target 4.3 ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university

Target 4.1 completion of primary and secondary education Target 4.6 achievement of literacy and numeracy Target 4.7 acquiring the knowledge and skills

2. Examining Target 10.3 3. Omission of specific focus on capability or freedom to translate existing opportunity sets into actual outcomes in the Target 10.3

• If “equal opportunity” is narrowly defined? • Notable is Target 4.a (building and upgrading facilities that

are child, disability and gender sensitive) • Empowerment of the vulnerable (para 23) needs to be

developed into more specific goals and targets to inform policy makers and stakeholders.


2. Examining Target 10.3 4. Plurality of relative space for inequality reduction

• Equality in one space may go with substantial inequalities in others.

• Which inequality should be addressed first when you have limited resources?

• Question of so called “Worseness” (Temkin 1993) should be answered in the strategy to achieve SDGs.


2. Examining Target 10.3 5. Target 10.3 as action to be executed rather than target to be achieved •Target 10.3 can be more specified as target •Both normative and comparative judgment and specific (mostly cardinal) measurements are needed.

•Valorized measurement and indicators


3. Suggestions 1. Clear position on distributive justice (such as unresolved

questions in the section 2).


3. Suggestions 2. Necessity of maximalist approach and political economy approach

• Sources of inequalities • Concerns about interdependence between economic

and social inequality and power asymmetry • Attention to capability aspect of (in)equality (targeting

within universalism, social security beyond relief (e.g. LRRD) etc.)


3. Suggestions 3. Avoid the risk of the Goal 10, in particular 10.3 being interpreted as a set of only economic and social goals

• Expansion to distributive justice in environmental dimension

• Expanding the operational unit of equal opportunities

from individuals or social groups to countries (e.g. inequalities between countries)

7.b / 9.4 / 9.5 / 9.a / 9.b / 12.a / 14.a/ 17.6 / 17.7 / 17.8


3. Suggestions 4. Establishing proactive policies and institutions that strengthen the capability of the vulnerable groups as well as eliminating or banning of discriminatory rules and practices

• Those in positions of power will act to retain their control through inventive, discriminatory elements that are not explicitly banned by laws. E.g. the case of employer practices in the United States following the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964).


3. Suggestions 5. Policy-oriented indicator system to create complementarity within and between goals and targets, and influence both policy and behavioral changes.

• Development of capability related indicators Making list of central or basic capabilities(or

mechanisms to transform opportunities into outcomes) to achieve SDGs (Nussbaum-like approach) ((“almost complete methods” such as “dominant partial ordering” can be used)

Survey methods to collect data of stated preferences, revealed preferences, and survey of subjective assessment on access to service or social mobility (e.g. UNRISD’s socio-economic development index using 140 variables and 79 indicators in the 1970s)

Strengthening participatory democratic mechanisms to make socially agreed central or basic capabilities


3. Suggestions • Goal-centred Maximum approach to avoid divergent or

contradictory indicators : e.g. income estimates for inequality reduction and consumption estimates for poverty reduction


4. Issues for Further Discussion 1. Insufficient attention to the inequality between those with

statehood, and those without it such as refugees or more broadly forced migrants.

2. innovative political institutions to promote and facilitate equal, meaningful and sustainable participation of people in policy making, and monitoring processes are needed.


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