Equity and equality are related but different concepts.
Equity is necessarily an ethical concept, to do with social
justice or fairness. By contrast, equality can be thought of
as a factual concept, to do with the degree of “sameness”
of people in some relevant respect. In principle, inequality
between individuals in the distribution of their income or
health or any other variable of interest can be defined
as a purely mathematical property of that distribution,
without necessarily making social value judgements about
how far inequality is “unjust” or “unfair”. By contrast,
inequity cannot be defined without making social value
judgements about justice. Achieving equity would require
a fair distribution of resources. The concept of equity or
social justice is very broad, and does not have to focus
exclusively on variation in the distribution of income or
health or some other good or bad outcome. In particular,
there may be concerns about “procedural justice” in the
social and economic processes that lead to a particular
distribution, as well as concerns about variation in the
resulting distribution. The concept of equity is complex,
and draws on myriad ideas of social justice or fairness
from different and long-standing religious, philosophical
and political traditions. The importance of the concept
of justice in history reflects a deeply rooted concern for
fairness among people in all societies and cultures (14).