Publication: Life Chances in Turkey : Expanding Opportunities for the Next Generation
Date
2010
ISSN
Published
2010
Author(s)
Abstract
Life chances explore the state of
equality of opportunities in Turkey. It builds on the
concepts and ideas presented in the World Development Report
2006: equity and development. The authors assess how
today's distribution of wealth and the success of
children in learning to read and write are shaped by the
past, by factors predetermined at birth, factors over which
today's children and families have no control:
one's gender, parents' and grandparents'
education, region and area of birth, or mother tongue. Some
of the findings are stark, especially as they pertain to how
the opportunities today's children have affect the
future of the country: a girl born in a remote village to a
poor family and parents with primary education degrees will
very likely struggle in almost every area of her
development. Compared with a boy born to well-off, highly
educated parents in one of the urban centers in the
country's west, that girl is four times as likely to
suffer from low birth weight, one-third as likely to be
immunized, and ten times as likely to have her growth
stunted as a result of malnutrition. Similarly she has a
one-in-five chance of completing high school, whereas the
boy will likely finish school and move on to college. Life
chances shows how investing in early childhood education has
huge payoffs, for disadvantaged children as well as social
and economic development at large. This book goes beyond
tradeoffs between efficiency and equity. It shows that a
focus on equity, equality of opportunities, can also lead to
enhanced efficiency, once the productive capabilities of all
citizens are nurtured to their fullest extent regardless of
the luck of the draw at birth.
Citation
“Hentschel, Jesko; Aran, Meltem; Can, Raif; Ferreira, Francisco H.G.; Gignoux, Jeremie; Uraz, Arzu. 2010. Life Chances in Turkey : Expanding
Opportunities for the Next Generation. Directions in Development ; human development. © World Bank. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/2505 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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