Tracing Inequality of Opportunity across Birth Cohorts

Modernization theory argues that as societies become wealthier and more educated, inequality of opportunity decreases. This is based on the premise that new institutional structures reduce the influence of ascribed traits, such as socioeconomic background, making individuals' life outcomes increasingly associated with their genes. We examine the changes in inequality of opportunity across birth cohorts in the 20th century, differentiating between two conceptions of inequality of opportunity: the liberal and the radical perspectives. Both consider unfair the influence of ascribed characteristics on life outcomes. However, whereas the liberal view sustains that the impact of genetic differences on life outcomes is just, the radical view sees the influence of genetic differences on life outcomes as unjust. We use data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and the Health and Retirement Study and incorporate polygenic indices in our analyses. Our findings reveal that liberal inequality of opportunity tends to decline or remain stable, suggesting that modernization has reduced the impact of ascribed characteristics on life outcomes. In contrast, radical inequality of opportunity increases across cohorts in the United States for education, reflecting the growing influence of genetic differences. Overall, inequality of opportunity is higher in the United States than in England.