Equal Opportunity Examples

The equal opportunities it is a political concept that establishes as a priority of a fair and dignified society the guarantee that all its citizens can access the same benefits and exercise the same rights.

It is a concept linked to social justice, which raises the need to guarantee opportunities to people for their own development, instead of pursuing equality of results. In this sense, equality of opportunity and equality of results may constitute opposing sociopolitical doctrines.

Equal opportunities can be understood as a race in which the competitors start running from the same shot of exit, and not one in which some start first and others later, that is, that some have an initial advantage over others. This translates in the real world into class advantages, racial or gender advantages, which make life easier for some and more difficult for others.

It is possible to measure equal opportunities through specific indicators of society, which express class mobility, the wage gap and patterns of cultural consumption, among others. The handling of this information makes it possible to identify the main systemic inequalities in society, in order to design public policies and mechanisms to combat them.

Equal Opportunity Examples

Some examples of equal opportunity policies are:

1. University quotas and scholarships for low-income students, so that the best education is not reserved for those who have the financial means to support their studies.
2. Quality public health services (free and quality hospitals) so that the low budget of the popular classes is not devoured by medical care.
3. Company policies of salary and position equality between men and women, to overcome the so-called "gender gap" that reserves the highest and best paid positions for men.
4. Labor laws that contemplate minimum work quotas for sexually diverse minorities, so that transsexual people can access the job position they want to apply for.
5. Loans at a rate controlled by state organizations, so that small entrepreneurs have alternatives to large financial consortiums, or that the popular classes can undertake.
6. Scientific dissemination and training plans to provide the middle and lower classes with the opportunity to get closer to cutting-edge technology, and prevent the creation of technological elites.
7. Popular kitchens for children, young people and families in a state of vulnerability.
8. Legal, safe and free access to family planning methods and reproductive safety to avoid unwanted pregnancies that impede the labor and educational progress of women.
9. Work and study plans for people with disabilities so that they can be inserted actively and productively in society from an early age.

References:

• "equal opportunities" in Wikipedia.
• “Equal opportunities and treatment” in the International Labor Organization (ILO).
• “What is equal opportunity?” on Euroinnova.
• “equal opportunities” in the Ministry of Labor of Argentina.

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