Women's poverty in the context of the capability approach: a study on Turkish women living in Berlin

Purpose of the study: In Development as freedom, Amartya Sen confirmed the crucial "instrumental" role of five kinds of freedoms in the promotion of capabilities and therefore in the process of human development in general. These are political freedoms, economic facilities, transparency guarantees, social opportunities, and protective security. This paper has three empirical objectives: 1) to measure the effect of instrumental freedoms on capabilities, 2) to verify if this effect becomes stronger once instrumental freedoms are interconnected, and 3) to verify whether this relationship is moderated by the level of economic development achieved by each country. Methodology: To achieve these three objectives, this article confronts the second-order construct of "instrumental freedoms" (as an exogenous variable) with five first-order constructs (as endogenous variables). The five endogenous latent variables reflect the capabilities of health, education, housing, employment, and communication and mobility at the level of the sixty countries selected as the analysis samples. The estimation of the hierarchical structural model is done using the partial least squares approach and the repeated indicator method. Main Findings: This study highlights three major results: 1) The existence of a significant effect of instrumental freedoms on the five relevant capabilities selected. 2) When instrumental freedoms interconnect, they reinforce each other and their effect on human capabilities becomes stronger. 3) The multi-group analysis suggests that instrumental freedoms positively and significantly impact human capabilities in the same way in both developed and developing countries. Research implications: Freedom plays a "constitutive" and "instrumental" role in the development process. To provide people with the freedom to live according to their aspirations, public policies must be empowering. In other words, they should improve the instrumental perspective of at least three essential freedoms: political freedoms, economic facilities, and transparency guarantees. Novelty/Originality of this study: Apart from the works which attempted to operationalize Amartya Sen's capability approach, the relationship between instrumental freedoms and human capabilities has not been the subject of empirical studies. This paper is intended as a contribution to this field of investigation.

This research has investigated the impact of e-services on the empowerment of people in the context of Bangladesh. Amartya Sen's capability approach has guided the theoretical framework of the research. Empowerment has been conceptualized broadly to encompass five instrumental freedoms- political freedom, economic opportunities, transparency guarantee, social opportunities, and protective security- integral parts of the capability approach. The e-mutation of land is used as a representative of e-services and its impact on people's empowerment has been studied in this research. Both quantitative and qualitative data have been collected. While qualitative data has provided an opportunity to deeply understand the empowerment potentials of e-mutation service, the quantitative data indicated people's perception of e-mutation about the empowerment of people. It has been found that generally, e-services enable people to be better informed about services, bring greater transparency and create more options to receive services provided by the government. Productive time and cost saving have been identified as important results of e-mutation. However, access to e-services is constrained by various factors, including financial and technological ability and compatibility of the e-services for various sections of people. People's participation in the service delivery system is limited to lodging complaints using online platforms or hotlines.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Amartya Sen's capability approach can suggest an appropriate theory of education for ethical development. Many advocates of Sen's capability approach insist that his approach is superior to rival theories of education, including the human capital theory. This is because Sen emphasizes the purpose and various roles of education for achieving substantial freedom while rival theories focus on the instrumental aspects of education. A focus on rival educational theories often results in the negative effects seen occurring in colonial education. In principle, we agree with the advocates of Sen’s capability approach. However, we doubt that Sen’s emphasis is sufficient for guaranteeing that his capability approach is the appropriate theory of education for application in the context of ethical development. It does not have theoretical completion, and it gives no guidance as to conflict resolution concerning the roles, or value, of education. Nor does it give guidance as to how to implement pedagogical strategies. This incompletion allows economically instrumental values to dominate intrinsic values and non-economically instrumental values, as seen with the educational Millennium Development Goals. This prioritization is what has occurred in colonial education through the application of human capital theory. We suggest that in Sen’s capability approach, firstly, the meaning of the intrinsic value of education should be clarified; secondly, the non-economically instrumental roles of education should be explicated in the context of development; and finally, the priority of the intrinsic and the non-economically instrumental roles of education value should be taken over the economically instrumental values. In this revised theory, people’s substantive freedom is achievable through education, people’s aboriginal identities and values remain intact, and developing countries take seriously pedagogical strategies.

Freedom in the Space of Equality: A Response to Certain Liberal Egalitarian Objections to Amartya Sen's Capabilities Approach

This article argues that Amartya Sen's capabilities approach to development should be employed as an overarching conceptual framework for studies of communication for development and social change ( CDSC), presenting two justifications. First, the capabilities approach offers CDSC researchers a definition of development, one that is interdisciplinary, cosmopolitan, and oriented to public communication. This approach resembles the scope of modernization theory but is free of modernization theory's dichotomous thinking, neoliberal assumptions, and ethnocentrism. Second, CDSC research can contribute to the capability approach's analysis of communication. I review key capabilities concepts and illustrate the relevance to the capabilities approach of CDSC theory and research. A conclusion summarizes benefits of a capabilities approach to the study of CDSC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Well-being is an inexplicit concept- hard to define and conceptualise, and even harder to operationalize. Composite measures using macro level data are no doubt important as they provide a broader picture but they can only give little insights on individual well-being. The current study is an attempt to bridge this gap by conducting an assessment of the well-being of India's elderly by applying Amartya Sen's Capability Approach. Since the indicators used as a proxy for the respective functioning achievements in each domain are of a mixed nature, an Optimal Scaling method is performed in order to identify the principal components of overall well-being which allows variables to be scaled at different levels as a result of non-linear relationships between them can be modelled. For comparison across the well-being domains, the fuzzy set approach has been employed that handles continuous and ordinal variables simultaneously, and is generally used in the capability approach for micro-level analysis. By disaggregating the overall well-being score by age and sex, the grim scenario of gender disparity in later life is evident across major domains, thus throwing light on the cultural paradox which still persists in India.

Internet resources have been ascribed transformative powers in the development of educational organizations and students in developing regions. However, most development projects relating to Internet resources focus on publishing material without much analysis of the actual use. The question then is how we can go deeper in our analysis and study actual development outcomes. The analysis in this paper is based on Amartya Sen's Capability Approach, where both the means and ends are evaluated. The research question is “What are the benefits of using Amartya Sen's Capability Approach when evaluating development outcomes?”. We answer the question by evaluating what capabilities and functionings Internet resources can enable for students in higher education. Findings show that the Capability Approach enables us to gain a deeper understanding of why and how development outcomes are achieved. We are also able to follow the development process from the intervention to the realized outcomes. Annika Andersson, Åke Grönlund and Gudrun Wicander are the accepting Guest Editors for this article.

This chapter explores the impact of the digital industrial revolution on gender equality, focussing on women’s well-being and agency freedom as conceptualised by Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach. Sen’s framework emphasises the importance of individual freedoms and capabilities in achieving human flourishing and social justice. Women are disadvantaged in the age of the digital revolution, both educationally and financially, as well as in terms of wider life and fulfilment opportunities (capabilities), and this is deepening the gender gap rather than gradually closing it. Critically, many of the solutions to digital gender inequality reproduce outdated neoliberal discourses and thus their inherent inequality. The chapter begins by examining the dual aspects of women’s freedoms in Sen’s approach: well-being freedom, which refers to the ability to achieve valuable functioning, and agency freedom, which encompasses the capacity to make authentic choices and shape one’s own life. It then analyses how the digital industrial revolution has affected these freedoms, highlighting the potential of digital tools to expand women’s capabilities and choices, while also acknowledging the risks of digital exclusion and the reinforcement of gender-based constraints. This study will focus on examples from Türkiye as well as international perspectives such as the Eurostat and the United Nations. The chapter identifies key areas where digital technologies can enhance women’s well-being and agency, such as education, employment, and political participation. It also discusses the challenges posed by the gender digital divide, online harassment, and the reproduction of gender stereotypes in digital spaces.

Given the heightened rhetorical prominence the World Health Organization has afforded to equity in the past half-century, it is important to better understand how equity has been referred to and its conceptual underpinning, which may have broader global implications. Therefore, this study conducted a scoping review and focused on peer-reviewed literature by scanning Ovid MEDLINE and SCOPUS databases, and supplementing by hand-search. Articles were included if they met inclusion criteria - chiefly the explicit discussion of the WHO's concept of health equity, for example in terms of conceptualization and/or definitions. Articles which mentioned health equity in the context of WHO's programs, policies, and so on, but did not discuss its conceptualization or definition were excluded. Results demonstrate the WHO has held - and continues to hold - ambiguous, inadequate, and contradictory views of equity that are rooted in different theories of social justice. Moving forward, the WHO should revaluate its conceptualization of equity and normative position, and align its work with Amartya Sen's Capabilities Approach, as it best encapsulates the broader views of the organization. Further empirical research is needed to assess the WHO interpretations and approaches to equity. Key messages The WHO has held — and continues to hold — ambiguous, inadequate, and contradictory views of equity that are rooted in different theories of social justice. The WHO should revaluate its conceptualization of equity and normative position, and align its work with Amartya Sen’s Capabilities Approach.

In recent years, European Cohesion Policy has gained renewed significance amid rising inequalities in the European Union. This paper examines territorial cohesion by analyzing the Territorial Agenda 2030, the current strategic policy document for territorial development, through the lens of Amartya Sen's capabilities approach. It examines the policy framework of ‘A Just Europe’ and reveals theoretical connections with spatial justice, as well as policy-related overlaps with the social investment approach. The Agenda, by adopting a ‘new’ meaning of territorial cohesion, as ensuring ‘a sustainable future for all places and people in Europe’, introduces a human geography perspective that promotes an individual-based idea of cohesion linked to spatial justice and the social investment paradigm. However, social investment policies to date have revealed key limitations, primarily due to their lack of place sensitivity and their narrow focus on employability and human capital. The research question guiding this paper is how the Territorial Agenda 2030, the concept of spatial justice, and social investment policies can be meaningfully linked through Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach. This could enable a future social investment policy to emerge, one that is urgently needed in the current spatially challenging environment of ‘left-behind places’ and expanding ‘geographies of discontent’.

This article deals with the potential contribution of Amartya Sen's capabilities approach (CA) for studying citizenship. Although the CA cannot be described as a genuine citizenship theory it has informed recent attempts to reformulate social citizenship. Moreover, it shares important aims and assumptions with radical citizenship approaches, which emphasise democracy, voice, and difference. Especially, Sen's ideas can help formulate positive notions of equality. However, a fruitful dialogue between those perspectives has to lead over some controversial issues. In this context, this article suggests more substantive notions of agency and interaction as well as integrating rights and rights language.

The aim of this paper is twofold: first, we discuss the main conceptual and methodological issues related to the operationalization of Amartya Sen's capability approach. Second, we review quantitative applications of the capability approach in different domains to examine how methodological and empirical challenges are addressed. The use of the capability approach implies a broadening of the “informational basis of judgments” and thereby leads to conclusions that differ from those drawn using standard economic approaches.

Over the last decade Amartya Sen's Capability Approach has emerged as the leading alternative to standard economic frameworks for thinking about poverty, inequality and human development generally. Professor Sen has developed, refined and defended a framework that is directly concerned with human capability and freedom [1]. This framework as it looks at peoples' freedoms and the means that enable them attain such freedoms, was found suitable for this study. This study therefore looked at mobile money users' functionings and freedoms in both rural and urban settings. The framework was therefore established to be suitable in studying societal development that focuses on the people, the development being yearned for and the means to attain such development.

A new framework for assessing the role of information and communication technologies in development that draws on Amartya Sen's capabilities approach. Information and communication technologies (ICTs)—especially the Internet and the mobile phone—have changed the lives of people all over the world. These changes affect not just the affluent populations of income-rich countries but also disadvantaged people in both global North and South, who may use free Internet access in telecenters and public libraries, chat in cybercafes with distant family members, and receive information by text message or email on their mobile phones. Drawing on Amartya Sen's capabilities approach to development—which shifts the focus from economic growth to a more holistic, freedom-based idea of human development—Dorothea Kleine in Technologies of Choice? examines the relationship between ICTs, choice, and development. Kleine proposes a conceptual framework, the Choice Framework, that can be used to analyze the role of technologies in development processes. She applies the Choice Framework to a case study of microentrepreneurs in a rural community in Chile. Kleine combines ethnographic research at the local level with interviews with national policy makers, to contrast the high ambitions of Chile's pioneering ICT policies with the country's complex social and economic realities. She examines three key policies of Chile's groundbreaking Agenda Digital: public access, digital literacy, and an online procurement system. The policy lesson we can learn from Chile's experience, Kleine concludes, is the necessity of measuring ICT policies against a people-centered understanding of development that has individual and collective choice at its heart.

We live in an information society, and, resultantly, significant attention is devoted to ensure “information-based rights” are protected among other essential human rights. Fostering and protecting information-based rights is essential to human well being, and the traditional strategies to support these rights focus on ensuring free and unfettered access to information, such as the right to education, the freedom to read, or providing for fair use of copyright-protected works. While ensuring informational goods and services are accessible is necessary for participation in our contemporary information society, we argue, however, that given the complexity of our information environment, additional factors must be considered within any information-based rights framework. Building on Amartya Sen’s capability approach, we suggest that individuals’ ability to access and use information is influenced by their relative capabilities. Those advocating for information-based rights – such as the free software, access to knowledge, and open access movements – must adjust their focus to include not only achieving access, but also the fostering of human capabilities.