Trade unions welcome the OECD’s new report “To Have and Have Not – How to Bridge the Gap in Opportunities”, but warn governments that equal opportunities are not enough to tackle today’s high levels of inequality, and that the report’s framing risks understating the role of systemic factors in inequality. The key finding that at least 25% of income inequality stems from circumstances beyond individuals’ control is, by the OECD’s own admission, a lower-bound which significantly understates structural causes.
The report calculates this figure using a restricted set of observed factors and primarily household income measurements. This approach can mask important structural patterns and undervalue systemic barriers. For example, the figure is built on household market income, which pools women’s and men’s earnings inside the same household, diluting gendered pay gaps and the impact of unpaid care. When measured at the individual level instead, gender’s contribution to inequality increases by a little over eightfold. As these factors aren’t fully counted, the 25% ‘circumstances outside individual control’ figure appears smaller than it should, and the rest can be easily mistaken for ‘individual choice/personal merit’.
However, these findings do also provide crucial evidence of how deeply entrenched inequality of opportunity has become across OECD economies. While the analysis demonstrates how parental socioeconomic background accounts for more than half of opportunity gaps across OECD countries, the total share of inequality stemming from circumstances beyond individual control exceeds 35% in Belgium, Ireland, Portugal and the United States when using different measurements.
"This is a timely and welcome study that reminds policymakers of the urgent need to address inequality at a time when the issue is slipping down governments' priority lists, even as living standards decline and social unrest intensifies. However, we must be careful about how we interpret these findings, particularly when the methodology acknowledges its own limitation in capturing the full extent of systemic factors."
Beyond measurement concerns, trade unions question the fundamental premise that factors “beyond” and “within” an individual’s control can be meaningfully separated. This division oversimplifies reality and risks portraying systemic problems as matters of personal choice. In reality, opportunity barriers and economic outcomes reinforce each other. Limited education leads to lower wages, which then limits children’s opportunities. Workers also face constraints from employer power, unpredictable hours and care responsibilities. These repeating cycles can’t be fixed by early-life interventions alone – they require collective solutions, notably collective bargaining, minimum-wage policy and job-quality standards.
Addressing these interconnected factors requires a mix of solutions at both micro and macro levels. Collective bargaining stands out among these solutions as a powerful mechanism for countering excessive employer bargaining power that often exploits individual characteristics to suppress wages.
"Collective bargaining is a proven equaliser in reducing income inequality. Research shows that by securing higher wages, stable employment, and better benefits for parents, unionised jobs directly improve children's opportunities and life outcomes. This intergenerational effect makes collective bargaining an essential tool for addressing inequality of opportunity."
While “To Have and Have Not” provides valuable food for thought and pushes the boundaries on data analysis on comparability of equality of opportunity across OECD countries, its framework underestimates power dynamics between different societal groups, such as workers and employers, and consequently overlooks the need for collective action.
TUAC calls on the OECD to complement individual-focused recommendations with robust labour market policies that can secure real equality, as well as to recognise the central role of collective bargaining in levelling the playing field.
Image credit: OECD
