What’s the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome? Equality of outcome looks to ensure people who are disadvantaged are making gains. Equality of opportunity looks to ensure that everyone has the same opportunities to make those gains.

In a lamp assembly factory, for example, equality of outcome might mean that workers are all paid equally regardless of how many lamps of acceptable quality they make, which also implies that the workers cannot be fired for producing too few lamps of acceptable quality.

A good example of a distinction made between the two goes as follows: Equality of opportunity provides in a sense that all start the race of life at the same time. Equality of outcome attempts to ensure that everyone finishes at the same time.

Equal opportunity provisions have been written into regulations and have been debated in courtrooms. It is sometimes conceived as a legal right against discrimination.

Political equality is the quality of a society whose members are of equal standing in terms of political power or influence. Equal citizenship constitutes the core of political egalitarianism. This is expressed in such principles as one-person/one-vote, equality before the law, and equal rights of free speech.

What is Equality? For two things to be equal means for them to be identical in some respect. Thus if two trees are both precisely 6 feet tall, they are equal in height. If two men both earn precisely $9,500 a year, they are equal in income.

Rather, the democratic concept of equality means that every person is entitled to (1) equality of opportunity and (2) equality before the law. That is, the democratic concept of equality holds that no person should be held back for any such arbitrary reasons as those based on race, color, religion, or gender.