Equality of opportunity

Introduction

Equality of opportunity is the idea that people's life chances should depend on their talent and effort and not on the accident of their birth. It is one of the commonest meanings given to the ideal of equality in democratic politics.

Equality of opportunity

Equality of opportunity does not ask that everyone should end up with the same status, income or standing. Its test is whether people have fair access to the goods on which a decent life is built, such as a safe home, medical care and schooling, because it is unequal access to these, rather than unequal wealth or rank as such, that makes a society unequal and unjust. Once that access is secured, different results are to be expected: people choose different paths and bring different abilities and effort to them, so a school class that produces one Olympic shooter, one start-up founder and many people in ordinary jobs shows no unfairness on that count alone. Behind the idea lies a claim that every person holds simply as a human being: an equal right, and an equal chance, to develop one's abilities and to pursue the goals one sets.

Formal and substantive. Formal (legal) equality of opportunity removes legal barriers: nobody is excluded by law from an office or a school because of birth, caste or sex. Substantive or fair equality of opportunity goes further, because a race with open entry can still be unfair if some runners start far behind. Think of a girl whose village school has one teacher for five classes and who works on the family farm after school, set beside a city child with books at home and a quiet room to study in: the law treats them alike, but their chances are not alike, and those from deprived groups need some special help if they are to compete fairly. The substantive view therefore asks the state to soften the effects of social and economic inequality and to secure certain minimum conditions of life for everyone; a society that fails to do so loses much of the talent born into it. Liberals add a qualification. State action to secure a minimum standard of living and equal opportunities may be needed, they accept, but it cannot by itself produce equality and justice; what shares out rewards, jobs and college places most fairly and efficiently is open competition held under free and fair conditions. On this view a bank that recruits its officers through one written test, open to every graduate and run under the same rules for all, distributes its jobs fairly, and the result is left to each candidate's ability and effort.

Difficulties. (a) Equality of opportunity cannot be perfect so long as family background, caste and wealth differ; (b) differential treatment aimed at it, such as reservations, raises disputes about fairness to others; (c) critics say that a ladder of competition can still leave those at the bottom badly off, which leads to demands for a "social minimum" or equality of outcome.

Equality of opportunity in the Indian setting

In India the idea is tested hardest at the entrance to professional education. Getting in often depends on paid coaching, and the fees of such courses can be very high, so a student from a poor family is at a disadvantage before the competition even begins. The handicap starts much earlier: a child in a village or an urban slum may never get to school at all, and one who does usually finds it far poorer than the elite schools that better-off children attend. The constitutional response is a mix of formal equality (a ban on discrimination and on untouchability), reservations as affirmative action and, in the NCERT account, a call for the state to do more for the deprived in education and health. Few dispute the goal; the argument is over policy. Who should count as deprived: those identified by income, or those held back by caste? And is the better remedy a share of reserved seats, or help in building talent and skills from early childhood ?

Conclusion

Equality of opportunity is a demanding ideal: it needs legal equality, a minimum of life conditions for everyone and sometimes special help for those starting far behind. It does not guarantee equal results, but it is what makes unequal results fair.