The ESCAP Inequality of Opportunity papers place men and women at the heart of sustainable and inclusive development. The papers do so by identifying seven areas where inequality jeopardizes a person’s prospects, namely: education; women’s access to health care; children’s nutrition; decent work; basic water and sanitation; access to clean energy; and financial inclusion. Each of these opportunities are covered by specific commitments outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and addressed in a separate thematic report covering 22 countries throughout Asia and the Pacific. Decent work embodies full and productive employment, rights at work, social protection and the promotion of social dialogue. Reaching those left behind and enabling access to decent work will promote lives of greater dignity and greatly reduce all forms of inequality. The overall aim of this policy paper is: i) to outline why policymakers need to take action to reduce inequality in access to full-time employment; ii) to introduce a new way of analysing survey data by identifying the shared circumstances of those “furthest behind”; and iii) to analyse observed inequality by the relative contribution of each different circumstance, over which the individual has little or no control.