| With the rapid development of China’s economy,inequality has received more and more attention.Compared with inequality of individuals’ final achievement,what is more contradictory is inequality of opportunities(IOp),that is,inequality of individuals’ final achievement caused by "circumstance ",such as family background gender and race,that are not controlled by individuals.At present,there are many studies that focus on inequality of opportunity and point out that people should not be responsible for IOp.They only need to be responsible for differences in achievement caused by "effort" controlled by individuals,that is,inequality of effort.But in fact,"circumstance" and "effort" are not completely independent.Therefore,there are certain challenges in measuring IOp and inequality of effort.Although scholars have fully considered this problem in the measurement of IOp,the IOp they measured includes the direct IOp brought by the "circumstance" that are independent of "effort" and the indirect IOp caused by "circumstance" that are related to the "effort".However,they did not separate two types of IOp.Moreover,the studies do not consider the difference between the two types of IOp in the analysis of the IOp’s economic and social impacts and the influencing factors of IOp.Both direct and indirect IOp are essentially IOp.However,indirect IOp has its particularity.Under the core of IOp,it has manifestations of inequality of efforts.Therefore,the economic and social impact of direct and indirect IOp as well as the factors affecting them are different.Existing research believes that IOp is not conducive to economic growth and social stability,and inequality of efforts is conducive to economic growth.However,these analyses do not consider the existence of indirect IOp,which has the characteristics of IOp and inequality of efforts and may play a role.This article believes that the impact of IOp is more complex than that revealed by existing research.At the same time,there are other factors that affect IOp to be discussed.Therefore,the existing researches need to deepen the understanding of inequality of opportunity.In light of this,I first decompose IOp into direct and indirect IOp after measuring it.Next,I analyze the economic and social impact from the different mechanisms of these two types of IOp on economic growth and individual social status.After finding out the existence path of indirect IOp,this paper explores new influencing factors of IOp from the idea of hindering the existence path of indirect IOp and enrich existing research.The main research conclusions of this dissertation are as follows:The first,IOp in China continued to rise between 2003 and 2008 and stabilized at about 0.2 from 2008 to 2015.The IOp accounts for about 40% of income inequality.This article uses the effort factor,education and employment,to decompose IOp into direct and indirect parts.The results show that indirect IOp accounts for 45% of the overall IOp,and its proportion has decreased year by year.About 35% of the indirect IOp comes from the impact of the circumstance on education,and nearly 10% of the indirect IOp comes from the impact of the circumstance on employment.During the study period,China’s IOp varies across provinces,regions,urban-rural areas,and gender.IOp are higher in rural aera than in urban aera.Women face higher IOp than men.Northeast China has the lowest IOp,and western China has the highest.The level of indirect IOp is higher in rural areas.The indirect IOp of circumstance’s impact on employment is higher among male groups and lowest in eastern regions.The indirect IOp of circumstance’s impact on education is highest in the eastern region.Second,IOp is not conducive to social mobility.This paper suggests that IOp is not conducive to individuals at the low end of the social status to improve their social status,but it is conducive to people at the high end of social status to improve their social status.It can be seen that IOp will cause social solidification.The empirical analysis of this paper finds that direct IOp is not conducive to the individual’s promotion of social status,and this adverse interaction has a stronger effect to people in lower parts of society.The indirect IOp from education is not good for individuals with low social status,but it is good for individuals with high social status.Therefore,the IOp from education also widens the gap in the social status of groups,which is not conducive to social mobility.Indirect IOp from employment is beneficial for individuals to improve their social status and social status expectations.However,this beneficial effect is greater for individuals at the high end of social status,so this effect cannot reduce the social status gap of the group,nor can it promote social mobility.Third,IOp is not a simple restraint factor on economic growth.The impact of IOp on individual social status shows that IOp has different effects on individuals with different social status.Therefore,different groups will have different incentive responses in the face of IOp.The effect of IOp on economic growth will vary depending on the individual ’s attitude towards inequality of opportunity.Individuals with environmental advantages benefit from IOp,so the higher the IOp,the stronger their motivation to continuously invest in production to consolidate or enhance current advantages.From this perspective,IOp promotes production and investment.Individuals at environmental disadvantage may face incentive inequality in the form of incentive effects or passive acceptance of adverse situations.When they do not succumb to this kind of inequity when faced with IOp,and produce incentive effects,they pay more efforts to overcome the inequality of opportunity,and at this time,IOp promotes economic growth.If they passively accept the IOp,their production and investment activities will be inhibited.At this time,the IOp is not conducive to economic growth.The effect of indirect opportunity inequality on economic growth is also complicated.The indirect IOp from the circumstance’s impact on education is essentially an increase in social human capital investment and promotes economic growth.The indirect IOp from the circumstance’s impact on employment will lead to market failures.Individuals with advantaged circumstance generally have better social capital,which can give them greater advantages in the labor market,then caused distortions in the labor market and hindered economic growth to a certain extent.Fourth,the analysis of the role of family background on education and employment shows that,the paths of indirect IOp are as follows: differences in family backgrounds cause individuals to receive different extracurricular education inputs,which affects individual education;differences in family backgrounds cause individuals to have different social capital,which affects individual employment.Fifth,from the perspective of hindering the existence of indirect IOp,the analysis of this paper shows that financial development may help families relax budget constraints and increase individual extracurricular education investment,thereby reducing educational differences;Increased marketization can reduce the role of informal forces in the economy and reduce employment differences caused by social capital with different family backgrounds.Empirical research in this article shows that both financial development and marketization improvement can significantly reduce IOp.Financial development mainly affects the indirect IOp of circumstance’s impact on education,and the increase of marketization mainly affects the indirect IOp of circumstance’s impact on employment.In reality,indirect IOp is displayed under the guise of effort inequality,but its essence is still IOp.Individuals’ responses to IOp are different,so the economic and social impacts of the two are also very different.Therefore,in-depth understanding of IOp,explore it’s impact on indivudual social status and economic growth,and analysis it’s influencing factors cannot ignore the difference between direct and indirect IOp. |
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