Effects of Socio-economic Development Plans on Multidimensional Inequality in Iran

The current study investigates the effect of implementing six development plans on multidimensional inequality in Iran. To this end, the multidimensional Gini Index of inequality by Assis Kumar Banerjee (2010) for dimensions such as welfare, education, housing, health, and social welfare (aggregation of other dimensions in household expenditure-income basket) calculated for years 1984-2021 and their performance was evaluated. The results of this study showed that the implementation of the development plans led to an inequality increase. Among these six plans, implementing the first plan had an incremental effect on the inequality value. The third and fifth socio-economic plans have a decremental impact on inequality at a significant level of 5%. Also, there was no difference between implementing and not implementing other plans on the inequality value. Also, the results indicated that given the comprehensiveness and multidimensionality of the development plans, inequality did not experience a constant trend and had mild fluctuations in the urban and rural areas and the whole country. Moreover, at the end of the sixth development plan, the inequality value (0.825) reached a value higher than the beginning of the first plan (0.771) in 1989.