RESEARCH ARTICLE Early childhood development in Iran and its provinces: Inequality versus average Mostafa Amini Rarani 1 | Mehdi Nosratabadi 2 | Maryam Moeeni 2 1 Health Management and Economics Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran 2 Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran Correspondence Maryam Moeeni, School of Management and Medical Information Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Hezar‐Jerib Ave., Isfahan, Iran. Email: mmoeini1387@gmail.com Funding information Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences Summary Background: Early childhood development is influenced by family socioeconomic status in such a way that socioeco- nomic deprivation might be accompanied with adverse out- comes in early development of a child. This study aimed to assess early childhood development based on average and also based on the distribution of socioeconomic inequality in Iran and its provinces. Methods: Using data from provincially representative Multiple Indicator Demographic and Health Survey (2010), we developed a suitable latent class approach to construct a proxy of socioeconomic status. A composite index of early childhood development was used. We assessed inequality in early childhood development using the concentration index method. Results: At province level (n = 30), the highest and lowest averages of early childhood development were 13.60 (SD = 2.99) and 5.81 (SD = 3.29), respectively. Concentra- tion indices indicated pro‐rich inequality in early childhood development at national and provincial level. The concen- tration index of early childhood development was 0.087 (95% CI = 0.085‐0.0098) in Iran. Moreover, the consistent positive values of the concentration indices revealed that early childhood development inequality favored best‐off children in all provinces. However, early childhood develop- ment was disproportionally distributed among provinces and rated 0.016 to 0.149. Conclusions: Iranian children in more prosperous house- holds reported higher early childhood development com- pared with those in poor households at national and Received: 25 April 2018 Revised: 2 June 2018 Accepted: 29 June 2018 DOI: 10.1002/hpm.2594 Int J Health Plann Mgmt. 2018;1–10. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hpm 1