Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice The Capability Approach Re-Examined, 2017a

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1. Introduction 13 Countries Outside Sub-Saharan Africa India Average for other poorest countries India’s rank among 16 poorest countries GDP per capita, 2011 (PPP Constant 2005 international $) 3,203 2,112 1 Life expectancy at birth, 2011 (years) 65 67 9 Infant mortality rate, 2011 (per 1,000 live births) Under-5 mortality rate, 2011 (per 1,000 live births) Total fertility rate, 2011 (children per woman) 47 45 10 61 56 10 2.6 2.9 7 Access to improved sanitation, 2010 (%) 34 57 13 Mean years of schooling, age 25+, 2011 4.4 5.0 11 Literacy rate, age 14–15 years, 2010 (%) Female 74 79 11 Male 88 85 9 Proportion of children below 5 years who are undernourished, 2006–2010 (%) Underweight 43 30 15 Stunted 48 41 13 Child immunization rates, 2011 (%) DPT 72 88 13 Measles 74 87 11 Source: Drèze and Sen (2013, 47).
14 Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice This type of illustration of the power of the capability approach, whereby at the macro level the quality of life in a country is compared with GDP per capita, is not restricted to poor countries only. For example, the capability approach has recently also been taken up by the ‘Better Life Initiative’ of the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The aim of this initiative is to track wellbeing, both in the present day and historically, by looking at ten dimensions of wellbeing: per capita GDP, real wages, educational attainment, life expectancy, height, personal security, the quality of political institutions, environmental quality, income inequality and gender inequality. Several of these dimensions can be conceptualized through a capability lens and others (such as per capita GDP or real wages) are needed for a comparison between capability dimensions and income dimensions, or can be seen as core capability determinants or capability inputs. In a recent report, which reconstructed the outcomes on those dimensions between 1820 and 2000, it was found that some dimensions, such as education and health outcomes, are strongly correlated with per capita GDP, but others are not — such as the quality of political institutions, homicide rates and exposure to conflicts (Van Zanden et al. 2014). Another example that illustrates the difference the capability approach can make is the analysis of gender inequality, for which it is clear that we are missing out the most important dimensions if we only focus on how income is distributed. There are two main problems with an income-based approach to gender inequalities. The first is that it is often assumed that income within households will be shared. Yet that assumption makes most of the economic inequalities between women and men invisible (Woolley and Marshall 1994; Phipps and Burton 1995; Robeyns 2006a). Moreover, gender scholars across the disciplines have argued that one of the most important dimensions of gender inequality is the distribution of burdens between men and women (paid work, household work and care work); the fact that women are expected to do the lion’s share of unpaid household work and care work makes them financially vulnerable and restricts their options. Any account of gender inequality that wants to focus on what really matters should talk about the gender division of paid and unpaid work, and the capability approach allows us to do that, since both paid and unpaid work can be conceptualized as important
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Index 255 political institutions 14
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