Equality, outcomes, and opportunity

Opponents argue, however, that there is not an equal opportunity for the rich and poor to obtain kidneys. But nor is there currently. Black markets for organs exist, which is the domain of the rich. The rich also have an advantage in accessing better treatment while waiting for organ donations, and have the resources to travel abroad and to seek organ and surgery elsewhere.

The rich always have greater access to resources than the poor. That defines wealth. That is what motivates people to work and save. But calling for equality of outcomes in one particular case, that of organ donation, but not in other life supporting cases, such as the supply of food, clothing and shelter, is a disservice to society.

A mental exercise

Moving along from the racist and “richist” to the sexist, one can see the same confusion over equal opportunities and equal outcomes in the debate over maternity leave and equal pay for women. The uncommon starting position for this analysis is to ask why equal pay is expected, and the uncommon technique to analyse this question is to examine a hypothetical situation.

Imagine the hypothetical situation in which a medical breakthrough enables men to be impregnated and breastfeed (forget biological and medical reality, but remember the movie Twins). If this technology was widely adopted by men, would the pay gap disappear? Would men who had received anti-birthing surgery, which made them never able to give birth, have greater pay than men who could become pregnant at any time?

Imagine now you run a small business and are looking for someone reliable to take on the management over the longer term. Two male candidates exist. Both are in their 20s, but one has had anti-birthing surgery. In all other ways they are identical. Which do you choose?

The point of the above thought exercise is to get to the heart of the equal pay issue. Women and men are different. Women can, and do, become pregnant without planning for an opportune time in their career to do so. Women often choose not to return to the workforce, to return only part-time, or only after a prolonged break, when their skills are slowly becoming obsolete. Women also generally have different sets of skills to men, many of which are not as highly valued in business.

The opportunity for women to work is clearly available. But the fact that there are not more women CEOs, bankers, engineers, or economists, is not a sign of unequal opportunity. Women may simply be the smarter sex, and choose not to devote their life to corporate careers.

The final word

The point of this essay has been to highlight the inherent problems with measuring the success of progression to equal opportunities by measuring equality in outcomes. Even though equal outcomes may be popular with the voting public, governments should remember that equal outcomes are not signs of equal opportunity.