Measuring and Decomposing Inequality of Opportunity in Maternal and Child ‎Health Care Access Evidence from: The Occupied Territories of Palestine

In developing countries of the Middle East, which incorporates Palestine, access to basic housing, ‎health, ‎and nutrition is characterized as being unequally distributed among children. This study aims ‎to measure ‎and decompose inequality in access to maternal and child healthcare services in The ‎Occupied Palestinian ‎Territories, through the implementation of the Human Opportunity Index and ‎the Shapley Decomposition ‎approach. By using the 2014 survey in the oPt, the study estimates the ‎overall coverage and the level of ‎inequality influenced by different circumstance variables. This study ‎incorporates an extensive set of ‎dependent and circumstance factors representing access to ‎healthcare for ‎mothers and children in the oPt. ‎The study uncovered that Inadequate level of ‎parents' education contributes to higher inequalities, more ‎specifically the circumstance variable ‎‎“mother’s education” indicates that the higher level of education ‎attained by mother leads to the ‎corresponding higher rate of access for overall healthcare services. Thus, ‎results obtained from this ‎study provide the policy makers with a practical and analytical tool for policy ‎analysis, to implement a ‎proper reference to achieve progress in eliminating inequities in circumstances ‎and opportunities for ‎children. ‎