Comparing Human Development Patterns Across Countries: Is it Possible to Reconcile Multidimensional Measures and Intuitive Appeal?

The aims of this paper are two. The first is to to present a framework that facilitates the identification and analysis of human development patterns in terms of outcomes performance from a cross and time perspective. The second is to find a method that is effective in summarizing different dimensions that concerns human development progress. We consider human development progress as enhanced throughout virtuous synergies among positive human development outcomes and between these and `positive' economic outcomes. The methodology aims to take into consideration these synergies, while the theoretical framework captures different patterns of human development progress through the distinction between the social dimensions (SD) and the economic dimensions (ED) as `command over resources'. Although this framework is not a sufficient guide for policy, the research findings are an explicit recognition of the need to analyse and to integrate economic and social policies. Furthermore, the explorative empirical results highlight different human development patterns between countries and their connection to the different policies adopted by each country (e.g. by transition economies) and by the impact of different type of crises.Human Development, HDI, Multidimensional Index

Child Poverty Measurement: the Case of Afghanistan

This paper examines child poverty from a multidimensional perspective. The main goal is to apply a general methodology in order to measure child poverty as a deprivation of capabilities and achieved functionings. In the capability perspective, child poverty is intended as the lack of freedom to choose to do and to be what children have reason to value. Although the various approaches to conceptualising, defining and measuring poverty, several researchers underline the need for children to be separated from their adult nexus, and treated according to their own specificities. The case study is focused on Afghan children, and it is based on a survey carried out by Handicap International that took into consideration many dimensions of children’s wellbeing, including concepts that are usually missing in standard surveys.Afghanistan, Multidimensional poverty measurement, Capability Approach, Children

Towards a ‘harmonious society’? Multidimensional development and the convergence of Chinese provinces

The paper analyses multidimensional patterns of development across Chinese provinces over the last two decades (1993–2016) from a balanced or ‘harmonious society’ perspective. The harmonious multidimensional index and other indexes are introduced to explore different development patterns among Chinese provinces. In order to analyse multidimensional convergence amongst the provinces, β- and σ-convergence methods are applied. The results indicate that recent efforts to move towards a ‘harmonious society’ are paying off, although notable differences across provinces remain and specific domains deserve special consideration

An Integrated Framework for Child Poverty and Well-Being Measurement: Reconciling Theories

AbstractMultidimensional child poverty (MDCP) and well-being measures are increasingly developed in the literature. Much more effort has gone to highlight the differences across measurement approaches than to stress the multiple conceptual and practical similarities across measures. We propose a new framework, the Integrated Framework for Child Poverty—IFCP––that combines three main conceptual approaches, the Capability Approach, Human Rights, and Basic Needs into an integrated bio-ecological framework. This integrated approach aims to bring more clarity about the concept and dynamics of multidimensional poverty and well-being and to disentangle causes from effects, outcomes from opportunities, dynamic from static elements, and observed from assumed behaviours. Moreover, the IFCP explains the MDCP dynamics that link the resources (goods and services), to child capabilities (opportunities) and achieved functionings (outcomes), and describes how these are mediated by the individual, social and environmental conversion factors as specified in the capability approach. Access to safe water is taken as a conceptual illustrative case, while the extended measurement of child poverty and well-being among Egyptian children ages 0 to 5 as an empirical example using IFCP. The proposed framework marks a step forward in understanding child poverty and well-being multidimensional linkages and suggesting desirable features and data requirements of MDCP and well-being measures

Dalle Capability Esterne alle Capability Collettive

The aim of this paper is to enhance the capability framework by building the link between external and collective capabilities. In the first part of the paper we concentrate on human obligation and the “care relationship”. In the second we focus on external capabilities and their connection to collective capabilities. The paper then focuses on the difficulties that collective capabilities encounter during their development.Disability Studies; Capability Approach, Collective action