their physical, emotional, social, and cognitive development (UNICEF, 2010). Work, paid or unpaid, as well as domestic work (chores),<sup>18</sup> which we examine for children who are five years old, can endanger young children and make it challenging for them to transition to school.

# _2.3 Measures of Circumstances_

For this analysis, we looked at a set of measures of circumstances in which children find themselves early in life and which can have a substantial impact on their development. The specific factors we examine are the wealth of the household in which the child lives, father’s and mother’s education, the area of residence (urban or rural), the region of residence, and the gender of the child.

_Household wealth_ can be measured in a number of ways. For our analysis, we have used wealth quintiles based on an asset index that can be calculated for all the surveys that we have used. This index is defined based on factor analysis (Filmer & Pritchett, 2001) using indicator variables to determine whether or not the household owns certain goods such as a car, a refrigerator, or a television, and facilitates the classification of households into quintiles, from the poorest to the richest. Although the types of assets that are measured varies by survey and the nature of wealth has evolved over the decade studied, similar inputs enter into the wealth quintiles used across surveys. _Parents’ education_ is defined as the highest level of education attained by the child’s father or mother.<sup>19</sup> _Area of residence_ distinguishes between urban and rural residents and refers to this distinction at the time each survey is being conducted. _Region of residence_ reveals the regional disparities that have an impact on the various socioeconomic indicators of the population. To ensure that the outcomes of the various surveys used are comparable and to compensate for the finite sample size of a number of surveys, we grouped the data retaining the old breakdown into seven regions based on the distribution of the sample from each survey, in accordance with the different regions in the country. Lastly, we considered the _gender_ of the child as a key analysis variable so that we could take into account potential differences between boys and girls.

# **_3 Methods for Measuring Inequality of Opportunity_**

To assess the state of ECD, we first undertake descriptive analyses of the level of ECD outcomes in Morocco over time and differences by subgroups. We then quantify inequality by two measures, drawing on Roemer’s inequality of opportunity framework (Roemer, 1998, 2014): (a) dissimilarity indices, quantifying inequality throughout the population and (b) comparisons of the best off (most advantaged) versus the worst off (least advantaged). Multivariate regression child dumb, lazy, or another name like that); physical punishment (shook the child; spanked, hit, or slapped the child on the bottom with a bare hand; hit the child on the bottom or elsewhere on the body with something like a belt, hairbrush, stick, or other hard object; hit or slapped the child on the hand, arm, or leg); and severe physical punishment (hit or slapped the child on the face, head, or ears; beat the child with an implement; hit over and over as hard as one could).

18 The questions to capture work were as follows: (a) During the past week, did (the child) do any kind of work for someone who is not a member of this household? (b) During the past week, did (the child) help with household chores such as shopping, collecting firewood, cleaning, fetching water, or caring for children? (c) During the past week did (the child) do any other family work (on the farm or in a business or selling goods in the street)? 19 When data on parents’ education was not available (parents were not identified clearly in all of the surveys), the highest education level of the adult females in the household was used for mother’s education, and the highest education level of adult males in the household was used for father’s education.

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