Concept

Equal opportunity

Overview

Equal opportunity is a state of fairness in which individuals are treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers, prejudices, or preferences, except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified. For example, the intent of equal employment opportunity is that the jobs in an organization should go to the people who are most qualified – persons most likely to perform ably in a given task – and not go to persons for reasons deemed arbitrary or irrelevant, such as circumstances of birth, upbringing, having well-connected relatives or friends, religion, sex, ethnicity, race, caste, or involuntary personal attributes such as disability, age.

According to proponents of the concept, chances for advancement should be open to everybody without regard for wealth, status, or membership in a privileged group. The idea is to remove arbitrariness from the selection process and base it on some "pre-agreed basis of fairness, with the assessment process being related to the type of position" and emphasizing procedural and legal means. Individuals should succeed or fail based on their efforts and not extraneous circumstances such as having well-connected parents. It is opposed to nepotism and plays a role in whether a social structure is seen as legitimate.

The concept is applicable in areas of public life in which benefits are earned and received such as employment and education, although it can apply to many other areas as well. Equal opportunity is central to the concept of meritocracy.

There are two major types of equality: formal equality, the individual merit-based comparison of opportunity, and substantive equality, which moves away from individual merit-based comparison towards group equality of outcomes.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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In the same manner we are said to do injustice to ourselves when we appear not to give sufficient attention to any particular object of self-interest. In this last sense, what is called justice means the same thing with exact and perfect propriety of conduct and behaviour, and comprehends in it, not only the offices of both commutative and distributive justice, but of every other virtue, of prudence, of fortitude…
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
States what Equal opportunity is; the author is tied to Equal opportunity in the knowledge graph.
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While he remains in a country village, his conduct may be attended to, and he may be obliged to attend to it himself. In this situation, and in this situation only, he may have what is called a character to lose. But as soon as he comes into a great city, he is sunk in obscurity and darkness. His conduct is observed and attended to by nobody; and he is, therefore, very likely to neglect it himself, and to abandon…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
States what Equal opportunity is; the author is tied to Equal opportunity in the knowledge graph.
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Such a programme as this is one of the meanings of the phrase "_equal opportunity_," which voices the demand widely felt for some larger conception of economic and social justice than now obtains. It would make formal freedom, formal "equality" before the law, less an empty mockery by giving to every child some of the power and knowledge which are the necessary conditions of real freedom.
John Dewey, Ethics
Close in meaning to Equal opportunity; the term itself is not named.
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Equal opportunity

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