Opportunities among children in Africa (Results from ongoing work)

1. Opportunities among children in Africa(Results from ongoing work) AmbarNarayan, Ana Abras, Jose Cuesta and Alejandro Hoyos TheWorld Bank Fordiscussiononly – nottobecited without permission April 25, 2011

2. Improvement in non-income dimensions of poverty in many African countries Source: DHS, STATcompiler For example, primary school enrollment increased in Ghana, Mali and Tanzania between 1996 and 2008

3. But inequalities among groups within countries have evolved differently…… Source: DHS, STATcompiler • Rich-poor gap in enrollment fell only for Ghana among the 3 countries • Progress towards MDGs may conceal uneven progress among groups within countries

4. The probability of access to a service may depend on exogenous “circumstances” • The equality of opportunity principle • Circumstances outside an individual’s control (e.g. birth place, gender, ethnicity, income, education of parents) should not determine the person’s access to opportunities • Human Opportunity Index (HOI) • Inequality -sensitive coverage rate that incorporates: • A)The average coverage of a good or service, which society accepts should be universal • B) If it is allocated according to an equality of opportunity principle • A focus on children • Inequality in outcomes today is partly a reflection of inequality in opportunity in the past • Differences in opportunities during childhood can have lifelong impacts

5. Data: DHS surveys of 20 Africancountries * indicates country for which only one period data (from the more recent period) is available • Choice of countries partly depends on DHS availability for relevant period • Use of similar survey for comparability across countries and time period • Richness of DHS allows analysis of a number of key opportunities

6. Using HOI in different settings: a few questions • Opportunities • Access to a service that society agrees is critical for individual development • Essential for poverty eradication • Universality is a valid social objective • Circumstances • Set of exogenous characteristics for the individuals • Society wants these to not influence a child’s access to basic opportunities • Opportunities may need to be defined differently, but reduces comparability across regions • Social objectives of universality need not necessarily be the same in SSA and LAC • Even the same “basic” opportunities may have to be defined differently, for HOI to be useful • The choice of circumstances – what to include? • Include circumstances that can be influenced by policy in future (e.g. household wealth/income), since they are exogenous to the child? • Include circumstances that are exogenous to the child, but may be temporary or change rapidly over time (e.g. child’s orphan status or parent in the household) ? Our approach: to include both the above types of circumstances since they provide valuable information about vulnerable groups

7. Opportunities

8. Circumstances

9. HOI for African countries: school attendance (Period 2 or circa 2006) • High variation in coverage and HOI across countries; ranking of countries by HOI does not always mimic ranking by coverage (e.g. Sierra Leone, Nigeria on the right panel) • Coverage and HOI for attendance improve with age for most countries  late entry into school? • HOI tends to improve more than coverage with age  do circumstances matter more for attendance of younger children, i.e. timely entry into school ?

10. HOI for starting and finishing primary school on time (Period 2) • Low coverage for starting primary school and finishing 6th grade on time • Confirms pattern of late entry into school; not finishing 6th grade may also indicate dropouts • HOI much lower than coverage for both opportunities • Exogenous circumstances appear to matter more for timely entry into and finishing school than for enrollment

11. HOI for immunization and malnutrition(Period 2) • More variation across countries for immunization than malnutrition • These opportunities more equitably distributed across children of different circumstances than school attendance

12. HOI for Water and Sanitation(Period 2) • Very low coverage in basic services (piped water and flush toilet) • Large disparities across counties • HOI and coverage significantly different in many countries  high inequality of opportunity

13. Which circumstances matter the most for opportunities? Shapley Decomposition Lowest coverage Highest coverage

14. Which circumstances matter the most for opportunities in education? Shapley Decomposition Lowest coverage Highest coverage

15. How important is gender of the child as a circumstance? Example: School Attendance (6-11 years): period 2 Lowest coverage Highest coverage Important in some countries, but clearly other circumstances, and especially wealth status, seem to matter more

16. Which circumstances matter the most for opportunities in education? Shapley Decomposition for Ghana in period 2 Considerable variation in the relative “contribution” of circumstances to inequality – even across education opportunities in the same country

17. Circumstances and opportunities – general observations • Wealth and household head characteristics almost always matter the most • Education of head particularly important among head’s characteristics • Location of child (urban/rural) tends to be important, but with significant variation across countries • Household composition and child characteristics less important for most, but with some exceptions

18. Francophone and Anglophone countriesPeriod 1 or circa 1998Average HOI and Coverage by Anglo – Francophone Note: each gray (blue) bar shows the simple average of HOI for a particular opportunity across all Anglophone (Francophone) countries

19. Francophone and Anglophone countriesPeriod 2 or circa 2006Average HOI and Coverage by Anglo – Francophone • The gap between anglo and francophone countries seems to have become smaller over time –between late-1990s and late-2000s • Particularly so for imminization and nutrition

20. Francophone and Anglophone countries: school attendance (period 2) • Anglophone countries with higher average attendance and HOI in most cases, with a few exceptions (e.g. Rwanda, Cameroon) • For attendance age 12-15, gap between HOI and coverage is higher for Francophone countries than for all but 2 Anglophone countries

21. Improvement in HOI over time – school attendance Dots are the coverage of a specific country in each of the periods Caps are the confidence intervals of the HOI Note that interval between surveys not the same for countries • Between late 1990s and late-2000s, improvement in HOI for most countries • Largest improvement in Tanzania; big improvements in Madagascar, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia • Mozambique, Nigeria: increase in coverage but no statistically significant increase in HOI • Ghana, Zimbabwe: improvement in HOI larger than that in coverage

22. Changes in some other opportunities over time • Staring primary school on time: Ten out of 16 countries show significant progress in HOI • Access to piped water: Only Namibia and Senegal show significant progress in HOI • Immunization against measles: Seven out of 16 countries show significant progress in HOI • Not being underweight: Eight out of 15 countries show significant progress in HOI

23. Decomposing the Change in HOI: attendance (6-11 yrs) • Scale effect the most important for change in HOI in school attendance • Equalization effect smaller than scale effects but still sizeable for most • Composition effect small and not always positive

24. Decomposing the change in HOI: no underweight • Positive and large scale effect in most countries

25. Comparing Africa and Latin America (period 2)–interesting insights Note: All HOI used for these comparisons use the same definition of opportunities and comparable list of circumstances In terms of school attendance among 10-14 year olds, African countries are comparable with many countries in LAC region – in coverage and HOI

26. Africa and Latin America (period 2) • But African countries compare poorly with most LAC countries on completion of 6th grade on time • More indication that late entry into school is a major problem in Africa

27. Encouraging trends for Africa on school attendance (Period 1 - Period 2) • Large improvements in school attendance for most African countries • In almost all African countries, reductionin inequality of opportunities in attendance

28. But mixed picture on trends for primary school completion in Africa • Little or no improvement in HOI for 5 out of 16 African countries • For 10 of the 11 African countries showing an improvement in completion,increasein inequality of opportunities

29. To summarize main findings • Lower coverage and higher inequality by circumstances for education opportunities that are closer to “achievement” , compared to attendance • Pattern of late entry into school –short-term consequence of rapid expansion in enrollment? • Trend of many African countries “converging” towards Latin America on school attendance, but not for completing primary school on time • Lower coverage and higher inequality for immunization, which is linked more closely to a service, compared to nutrition; low HOIs for basic infrastructure for most countries • Circumstances that matter the most: wealth, hhold head attributes, urban/rural • Child attributes like gender sometimes matter, but almost never as much as wealth • Uneven improvements for all opportunities other than school attendance • 10 or fewer countries (out of 16) show statistically significant improvement in HOI • Where there is change, scale effect usually dominates; equalization effects usually smaller • Anglophone countries do much better than Francophone countries on the average, but gaps have shrunk for most opportunities over the decade

30. Thank you http://www.worldbank.org/poverty

31. Human Opportunity Index (HOI) as a measure • Inequality -sensitive coverage rate that incorporates: A)The average coverage of a good or service, which society accepts should be universal B) If it is allocated according to an equality of opportunity principle • Allows for monitoring of coverage and equity in access to opportunities • Definition of HOI: Coverage rate of a basic opportunity, discounted by the inequality in the allocation of opportunities HOI = C0 (1-D) where,  Average access (C0)  Inequality of Opportunity Index (D)

32. HOI has attractive properties as a measure Some highlights….. • Sensitivity to scale • If coverage for all groups increases parallely or multiplicatively by k, HOI also increases by the same factor k • Sensitivity to Pareto improvements • If coverage for one group increases without decreasing the coverage rates of the remaining groups, HOI increases • Sensitivity to redistribution • If coverage rate of a vulnerable group increases holding the overall coverage rate constant, HOI also increases • Changes in HOI over time can be decomposed into: • Composition effect: changes in the distribution of circumstances • Scale effect: proportional change in the coverage rate of all groups • Equalization effect: increase in the coverage of vulnerable groups keeping the average coverage rate unchanged

33. Empirically computing HOI • Estimate a logit model, the dependent variable is the opportunity (access to water, sanitation, completing 6th grade on time,etc.)and independent variables are the circumstances (gender, ethnicity, parents income, location, etc.) • Obtain the predicted probabilities of the logit for each individual • Estimate the Inequality of Opportunity Index (D): • n: Total number of individuals in the sample • 4. Estimate the Human Opportunity Index (HOI): • Note that the estimated HOI then depends on the likelihood or chance that a child with a set of circumstances has access to a particular opportunity