Opportunities among children in Africa (Results from ongoing work) April 25, 2011 Ambar Narayan, Ana Abras, Jose Cuesta and Alejandro Hoyos The World Bank For discussion only – not to be cited without permission

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

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

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

Data: DHS surveys of 20 African countries Choice of countries partly depends on DHS availability for relevant period Choice of countries partly depends on DHS availability for relevant period Use of similar survey for comparability across countries and time period Use of similar survey for comparability across countries and time period Richness of DHS allows analysis of a number of key opportunities Richness of DHS allows analysis of a number of key opportunities * indicates country for which only one period data (from the more recent period) is available Country Period 1Period 2 Circa 1998Circa 2006 Cameroon Congo RD* 2007 Ethiopia Ghana Kenya Liberia* 2007 Madagascar Malawi Mali Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda Senegal Sierra Leone* 2008 Tanzania Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe

Using HOI in different settings: a few questions 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 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 Education School Attendance (6 to 11 years) School Attendance (12 to 15 years) Started primary on time (by age 6 yrs) * Finished primary on time (by age 13 yrs) ** Housing/infrastructure Access to piped water Access to flush toilet Access to electricity Health Immunization against measles (1 year) No underweight (0 to 3 years) * Measured for cohort of children of age 6-7 yrs ** Measured for cohort of children of age yrs

Circumstances DimensionEducation OpportunitiesHousing OpportunitiesHealth Opportunities Child Characteristics Child's gender Birth order Household Composition Children (0 to 15 years) in the household Siblings living in the household Presence of Elderly Presence of both parents in the household Mother living with a husband or not Orphan of any of the parents Location Urban/Rural Household Head/Mother Characteristics Education of the household head Education of the mother Age of the household head Age of the mother head Gender of the household head Socioeconomic status Wealth Quintiles

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 ?

HOI for starting and finishing primary school on time (Period 2) Low coverage for starting primary school and finishing 6 th grade on time Confirms pattern of late entry into school; not finishing 6 th 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Francophone and Anglophone countries Period 1 or circa 1998 Average 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

Francophone and Anglophone countries Period 2 or circa 2006 Average 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

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

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 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 Note that interval between surveys not the same for countries

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

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 Decomposing the Change in HOI: attendance (6-11 yrs)

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

In terms of school attendance among year olds, African countries are comparable with many countries in LAC region – in coverage and HOI 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

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

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, reduction in inequality of opportunities in attendance

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, increase in inequality of opportunities

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

Thank you

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 = C 0 (1-D) where,  Average access (C 0 )  Inequality of Opportunity Index (D)

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

Empirically computing HOI Estimate a logit model, the dependent variable is the opportunity (access to water, sanitation, completing 6 th 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