Inequality of opportunity in health and cognitive abilities: the case of Chile
Author
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Carranza Navarrete, Rafael
Author
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Hojman Trujillo, Daniel
Admission date
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2016-06-17T20:29:48Z
Available date
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2016-06-17T20:29:48Z
Publication date
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2015-10
Identifier
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https://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/138996
Abstract
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This paper studies inequality of opportunity in health in Chile. Following Roemer's ap-
proach to equality of opportunity, we separate the e ect of circumstances and e orts -healthy
behaviors- on self-assessed health. In addition to parental and family background, our set of
circumstances includes a proxy of numeracy skills. We nd that circumstances explain nearly
40 percent of the variance of health outcomes, four times the contribution of e orts. More
than one third of the contribution of circumstances is due to numeracy skills, similar to the
contribution of parental education. Parents' longevity is also important but its contribution
is smaller. The overall in
uence of circumstances on inequality is substantial, ranging from
62 to more than 90 percent depending on the inequality index used. Overall, we nd that
health inequality is higher in Chile than in European countries and the contribution of unequal
opportunities to inequality is at least as large. Our results also highlight the importance of
cognitive ability on health inequality.