Equal Opportunity Sensitive Aggregate Wellbeing Measurement: Food Security and Basic Household Income on Sub-Sahara African Farms

Abstract

Equality of Opportunity and gender equality, key components of the UNs' Sustainable Development Goals and Inclusive Growth initiatives, require wellbeing measures that reflect the extent to which such targets are being achieved. From a measurement perspective, the Equal Opportunity literature distinguishes between inequalities arising from individual choice and inequalities engendered by circumstances beyond individual control, only the latter should enter the calculus. However, common metrics of socio-economic inequality make no such distinction confounding different inequality sources and obfuscating potential intervention pathways. Using recent intertemporal data from family farms on four Zimbabwean and Tanzanian irrigation schemes, this study introduces and exemplifies new methods for measuring Equality of Opportunity multidimensionally within an overall wellbeing framework. Results indicate a deterioration in equality of opportunity in access to land, with an improvement in equality of opportunity in revenue generation, with the former outweighing the latter in a joint analysis resulting in a decline in overall wellbeing.