WIDER Working Paper 2015/043 Inequality of opportunity in educational achievements: Cross-country and intertemporal comparisons

as its first research and training centre and started work in Helsinki, Finland in 1985. The Institute undertakes applied research and policy analysis on structural changes affecting the developing and transitional economies, provides a forum for the advocacy of policies leading to robust, equitable and environmentally sustainable growth, and promotes capacity strengthening and training in the field of economic and social policy-making. Work is carried out by staff researchers and visiting scholars in Helsinki and through networks of collaborating scholars and institutions around the world. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s). Publication does not imply endorsement by the Institute or the United Nations University, nor by the programme/project sponsors, of any of the views expressed. Abstract: This paper evaluates fairness in educational achievements through the ordered pair (W EEOp , I EOp) whose components provide: (i) A measure of social welfare which accounts for the achievement of less-advantaged pupils and (ii) a synthetic index of inequality in educational opportunities. Students' test scores from the Programme for International Students Assessment are exploited to perform a crosscountry and intertemporal comparison of fairness in education. The crosscountry comparison shows that none of the countries outperform in both components of fairness, whereas the intertemporal comparison shows that few countries have moved towards a greater degree of equality of opportunity all the while improving the performance of the less-advantaged students.