A Literature Survey of Disaggregating General Well-Being： Empirical Capability Approach Assessments of Young and Old Generations in Affluent Countries

This paper explores how empirical capability approach studies assess well-being for young and old generations in affluent countries, defined as high-income OECD countries. After a brief overview on the theoretical capability background and empirical core decisons, the authors discuss empirical capability studies on the well-being of children, adolescents and the elderly. The authors find that the issues of child and youth well-being have been increasing interested by capability researchers while despite of the importance of demographic change, few researchers deal with old-age issues. The authors conclude that for young as well as old generations, capability approach studies confirm that income assessment is not sufficient to capture well-being for the young and the old but has to be enriched by a more comprehensive perspective on capabilities and functionings. Moreover, it is recommendable and issues that have already entered the agenda of studies on for research on elderly to adopt research methods, questions capabilities of children and young adults. As capability sets for both, young and old generations are in general characterized by changes, i.e., expansions in the case of children, declines in the case of older people, both may benefit from a more dynamic perspective on life cycles on their way to potential dynamic capability theories and empirics.

Eliminating poverty through development:The dynamic evolution of multidimensional poverty in rural China

This paper measures intertemporal multidimensional poverty in rural China from 1988 to 2018 based on the China Household Income Project(CHIP)data and for that time period has the following findings.First,multidimensional poverty in rural China declines steadily when measured through the income poverty approach.Second,multidimensional poverty in rural areas presents demographic and regional heterogeneity,among which elderly poverty,child poverty,and poverty in the western Chinese region are the most prominent ones.Third,income poverty and multidimensional poverty have a low overlap ratio and show intertemporal synchronisation over time.Although increases in income can alleviate multidimensional poverty,this effect is very limited.This paper suggests that a suitable multidimensional poverty identification framework should be developed in the era of poverty alleviation after 2020 and that in the new poverty alleviation governance system of China,targeted development strategies should be formulated with an increased focus on the poverty of special groups such as children and the elderly.

An Empirical Exploration of the Capabilities of People with Disabilities in Coping with Disasters

While the capability approach is increasingly being adopted for evaluating well-being and social justice in the field of human development,this approach in disaster research has remained scarce.This research thus seeks to address the disaster risk that humans face through a lens of capabilities,with a focus on the lives of people with disabilities.A multi-case study approach was adopted and two rural communes in Vietnam were selected as study con texts.Data were collected using focus group discussions and interviews that involved people with disabilities,parents/caregivers of people with intellectual/psychosocial disabilities,and representatives from related organizations.It was found that people with disabilities are affected by disasters due to the lack of capabilities that they value in coping with disasters.A range of capabilities that people with disabilities value was revealed in the study sites,with many being valued not only in times of disasters but also in daily life.The findings also highlight that,to actualize their valued capabilities,people with disabilities need access not only to resources but also to the factors that enable them to convert the resources to their valued capabilities.In most cases,the limitations to the achievement of capabilities are related to the external environment.

Do Village Girls Gain Empowering Capabilities through Schooling and What Functionings Do They Value?

This paper explores the relationship between girls’schooling and empowerment in western China in the first decade of the 21st century.This paper adopted a capability-empowerment framework based on Sen’s capability approach into which were integrated concepts by Bourdieu,Appadurai,Nussbaum,Kabeer,and Unterhalter,to help to understand the tenacity with which village girls pursued schooling.In interviews with a group of 23 girls and young women,several valued functionings of intrinsic capability sets in the freedom dimensions of well-being and agency and their association with rising levels of school attainment were found.The girls were found to be gaining empowering capabilities through schooling,but that these were not equally distributed,neatly slicing the group into two sharply defined groups with different life paths.One set dropped out in the middle school years with a smaller set of empowerment capabilities to work in low-skilled jobs in cities,which offered them new places to change.The other set remained in school longer to achieve a larger set of empowering functionings that they converted into more substantive freedoms in a variety of settings.