Income Inequality and Opportunity Inequality in Europe

Abstract

This paper proposes an estimate of the extent of opportunity inequality and of its determinants in a sample of European countries, based on the Survey on Income and Living Conditions conducted in 2005. Although the ranking among Northern European and Mediterranean countries is generally respected, our measures of equality of opportunity provide a different ranking with respect to the one offered by the measures of overall income inequality. Our figures show that equality of opportunity has correlation with both institutional measures of schooling (pre-primary education, de-tracked secondary school) as well as with labour market institutions (union density, but not employment protection).