Peer-reviewed article

Opportunity Differential in Early Childhood Development in Punjab, Pakistan: Role of Stunting

Hafiz Ghulam Mujaddad, Sundus Jameel · 30 Dec 2025

Abstract

Persistent inequalities in Early Childhood Development (ECD) services pose a major challenge to equitable human development. These disparities can limit a child’s future potential and reinforce the cycle of poverty and inequality. The aim of this study is to examine the extent and sources of opportunity differentials in ECD in Punjab, Pakistan by analyzing how various socioeconomic and demographic factors affect children’s early access to essential ECD services. This study explores opportunity differentials in ECD among children aged 3 to 5 years in Punjab, Pakistan, using data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2017. Drawing upon the Human Opportunity Index (HOI) within the Equality of Opportunity framework, the research quantifies inequalities in access to key developmental opportunities such as literacy, cognitive skills, motor development and social behaviour. In second stage of analysis, Shapley decomposition analysis is utilized, to assess the circumstance based factors contribution in inequality of opportunity. The analysis reveals significant contribution of each circumstance factor to inequality. Stunting is found as the largest contributor of inequality in behaving well with others with 57.5% and 20.4% in reading skills. Early childhood education contributing 20.5% in word recognition, 40% in alphabet recognition, and 28.3% in being able to perform small tasks, followed by household wealth contributing 35.5 % to follow directions, 26.7% to get distracted,16.1% contribute to health in large proportion while child gender accounts for the smallest share. The study concludes that targeted policy interventions are urgently needed to reduce ECD disparities.