Equalised Odds is not Equal Individual Odds: Post-processing for Group and Individual Fairness

Edward Small, Kacper Sokol, Daniel Manning, Flora D. Salim, Jeffrey Chan

Abstract: Group fairness is achieved by equalising prediction distributions between protected sub-populations; individual fairness requires treating similar individuals alike. These two objectives, however, are incompatible when a scoring model is calibrated through discontinuous probability functions, where individuals can be randomly assigned an outcome determined by a fixed probability. This procedure may provide two similar individuals from the same protected group with classification odds that are disparately different – a clear violation of individual fairness. Assigning unique odds to each protected sub-population may also prevent members of one sub-population from ever receiving the chances of a positive outcome available to individuals from another sub-population, which we argue is another type of unfairness called individual odds. We reconcile all this by constructing continuous probability functions between group thresholds that are constrained by their Lipschitz constant. Our solution preserves the model’s predictive power, individual fairness and robustness while ensuring group fairness.