The Role of Polygenic Indices in Inequality of Opportunity

Abstract

Equality of opportunity is a principle of social justice, although there are different conceptions of it. We distinguish between fair and luck egalitarian equality of opportunity. Both conceptions consider to be unfair inequalities in life chances resulting from ascribed characteristics such as social origin and sex. They differ, however, in that fair equality of opportunity considers it fair when innate abilities affect life chances. Luck egalitarianism places innate abilities in the category of morally arbitrary factors that do not provide a just basis for inequalities in life chances. Empirically, we use genetic information to measure innate abilities and compare this approach to observing abilities later in life. Using genetic information allows us to better disentangle the role of innate abilities from those of environmental influences and individual choices. We apply this approach to nationally representative data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). According to our results, luck egalitarian inequality of opportunity is considerably larger than fair inequality of opportunity, especially for education. Measuring innate abilities using genetic information leads to very similar conclusions as using abilities measured later in life, with slightly smaller differences between fair and luck egalitarian inequality of opportunity.