In his book Let their people come: Breaking the gridlock on international labor mobility, Lant Pritchett writes that we can learn a lot by comparing our reactions to discrimination based on sex to our reactions to discrimination based on nationality. A lot of attention is given to differences in the level of schooling between boys and girls, partly because these differences are thought to be the result of unethical discrimination. But the differences in the level of education between boys and girls in a poor country are often much smaller than the differences between boys in the poor country and girls in a rich country.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2013, 59% of men aged 25 or over had completed lower secondary school, while only 28% of women had done so. It is right to feel outrage over this 21% gap. But in nearly every rich country, essentially 100% of people complete lower secondary school, so the gap between girls in rich countries and boys in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is 41%. Why are we not more outraged by this larger gap?
This is not to say that the problem of sex discrimination is not a serious global problem. But why are the sex comparisons so much more important to the public than the nationality comparisons? A Congolese girl not having life chances equal to those of a Congolese boy is widely considered as morally unacceptable. But preventing a Congolese girl (or a Pakistani, Bolivian, or Egyptian girl) from moving across national borders to have the same life chances as a German boy (or a US, French, or Japanese boy) is considered morally acceptable.
Question
- Why are most people more outraged by the differences between the opportunities that Congolese girls have and the opportunities Congolese boys have than by the differences between the opportunities Congolese children have and the opportunities German children have?