Social Policy and the Capability Approach: Concepts, Measurements and Application 9781447341796

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MARA A. YERKES JANA JAVORNIK ANNA KUROWSKA

SOCIAL POLICY AND THE CAPABILITY APPROACH Concepts, measurements and application

POLICY PRESS

RESEARCH

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Policy Press North America office: University of Bristol Policy Press 1-9 Old Park Hill c/o The University of Chicago Press Bristol 1427 East 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637, USA BS2 8BB UK t: +1 773 702 7700 t: +44 (0)117 954 5940 f: +1 773 702 9756 [email protected] [email protected] www.policypress.co.uk www.press.uchicago.edu © Policy Press 2019 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested. ISBN 978-1-4473-4178-9 ISBN 978-1-4473-4180-2 ISBN 978-1-4473-4181-9 ISBN 978-1-4473-4179-6

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The right of Mara A. Yerkes, Jana Javornik and Anna Kurowska to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Policy Press. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the editors and contributors and not of the University of Bristol or Policy Press. The University of Bristol and Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Policy Press Front cover image: iStock Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Policy Press uses environmentally responsible print partners

Contents

List of figures and tables

v

Notes on the editors

vi

Notes on contributors

viii

one

Rethinking social policy from a capability perspective Mara A. Yerkes, Jana Javornik and Anna Kurowska

two

Education as investment? A comparison of the capability and social investment approaches to education policy Jean-Michel Bonvin and Francesco Laruffa

19

three

From ‘active’ to ‘capable’: a capability framework for policy and practice on ageing and later life José de São José, Virpi Timonen, Carla Amado and Sérgio Santos

41

four

Converting shared parental leave into shared parenting: the role of employers and use of litigation by employees in the UK Jana Javornik and Liz Oliver

61

five

Comparative social policy analysis of parental leave policies through the lens of the capability approach Anna Kurowska and Jana Javornik

83

six

Ask rather than assume: the capability approach in the practitioner setting Jana Javornik, Mara A. Yerkes and Erik Jansen

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seven

Social investment, human rights and capabilities in practice: the case study of family homelessness in Dublin Rory Hearne and Mary Murphy

125

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From the capability approach to capability-based social policy Mara A. Yerkes, Jana Javornik, Erik Jansen and Anna Kurowska

147

Index

157

iv

List of figures and tables

Figures 5.1 5.2

Theoretical framework Parental leave policies, 2017 (scores on a scale 1–8, maximum = 8), by country

89 98–99

Tables 2.1 3.1 4.1 5.1 6.1

The role of education policy in the social investment and the capability 31 approaches Main limitations of the EU policy on AA and features of the CA that 51 can overcome these limitations Basic features of the work–family portfolio with the changes made 66–68 by the 2014 CFAct, UK Parental leave policy dimensions, assessment criteria, scores 94–95 Policy professionals and practitioners involved in the development 110 of this chapter

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Notes on the editors

Mara A. Yerkes is Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her research broadly centres on comparative social policy (including welfare states, family policy, industrial relations and citizenship regimes) and social inequalities (around work, care, communities and families, in particular in relation to gender, generations, and sexuality). Yerkes is principal investigator of the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator project CAPABLE, a comparative project on gender inequalities in work-life balance in eight European countries. She is the author of numerous articles and books, including Transforming the Dutch Welfare State: Social Risks and Corporatist Reform (Policy Press, 2011). Jana Javornik is Associate Professor of Work and Employment Relations at Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Her research focuses on comparative work-family policies; equality, diversity and inclusion in work; and conceptualisations, innovative methods and data visualisation techniques. Jana has authored several journal articles, co-edited special issues on welfare state research, and contributed to UNDP Human Development Reports and The Social Situation in the EU reports. She is currently Fellow at Business in the Community – The Prince’s Responsible Business Network.

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Notes on the editors

Anna Kurowska is Assistant Professor at University of Warsaw. Her interests include: the capability approach in comparative social policy; gendered impact of policies on employment, fertility and work-life balance; welfare attitudes and solidarity. She has recently published articles in European Societies, American Behavioral Scientist and Social Indicators Research.

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Carla Amado is Assistant Professor in Management at the University of Algarve. Her interests include performance assessment, improvement of programs and organizations. She has published several refereed articles on productivity, efficiency and equity analysis. She has recently published articles in the European Journal of Operational Research and the Journal of Aging Studies. Jean-Michel Bonvin is Professor of Socioeconomics and Sociology at the University of Geneva. His fields of expertise include social and labour market policies, and theories of justice, especially Amartya Sen’s capability approach. He is principal investigator in the LIVES project ‘Overcoming Vulnerability: Life Course Perspectives’ and the H2020 Re-INVEST project. He is the Director of the Centre for the study of capabilities (CESCAP). He has published, among others, Amartya Sen, Une politique de la liberté (with N. Farvaque – Michalon, 2008) and co-edited Empowering Young People in Disempowering Times (with H.-U. Otto, V. Egdell and R. Atzmuller – Elgar, 2018). Rory Hearne is a lecturer in Social Policy in the Department of Applied Social Studies in Maynooth University. He has researched and published in areas of social housing, neoliberalism and the welfare state, economic inequality and new social movements. His publications include Hearne R. and Murphy M. P. (2019) Participatory Action Research: a Human Rights and Capability viii

Notes on contributors

Approach: Re-Invest PAHRCA Methodological Toolkit PAHRCA, Part One Theory (Brussels: Reinvest) and Hearne (2011) Public Private Partnerships in Ireland (Manchester University Press). Erik Jansen, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Research Center for Social Support and Community Care at HAN University of Applied Sciences, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. His research focuses on wellbeing from the perspective of human capabilities and particularly on how social professionals can enhance the capabilities of persons by applying the arts and technology. He also works on networked learning processes among stakeholders in the fields of care and wellbeing, in community care and in sustainability issues. Erik’s methodological experience involves a range of research methods from experimental methods to narrative and action research approaches. Francesco Laruffa is Research Fellow at the University of Geneva, where he worked for the EU-funded Re-InVEST project, which aims to re-think ‘social investment’ from a capability perspective. In Geneva he is also member of the research network LIVES (‘Overcoming Vulnerabilities – Life Course Perspectives’) and of the CESCAP (Centre for the study of capabilities). His research interests include: the normative dimension of welfare reform, theories of social justice, neoliberalism and critical theory. Mary Murphy, PhD, works as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University. Her research interests include labour market and social security policy, power and civil society, and gender. She has published widely in key journals and books (Towards a Second Republic, with P Kirby, Pluto Press, 2011) and The Irish Welfare State in the 21st Century (co-edited with F Dukelow, Palgrave, 2016). A contributor to national policy debate, she was a member of the National Expert

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Advisory group on Taxation and Social Welfare 2011–2014 and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission 2013–2017. Liz Oliver is a Lecturer in Employment Law at Leeds University Business School. She is a socio-legal scholar with interests in the legal regulation of work and employment. Liz is interested in the issues of flexibility and precarity. She contributed to research for the European Parliament on the social protection of platform workers. She has a strong interest in equality; particularly equal pay, work and family strategies and the inclusion of learning disabled people. Sérgio Santos is Associate Professor at the University of Algarve, Faculty of Economics, and Scientific Coordinator of the Center for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics (CEFAGE). His research interests include performance measurement and benchmarking in the private and public sectors. He has recently published articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change and the European Journal of Operational Research. José de São José is Assistant Professor at the University of Algarve, Faculty of Economics, and member of the Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences (CICS.NOVA). His research interests include ageism, active ageing, fourth age; health and long-term care; inequalities in later life and sexuality in later life. He has recently published articles in Ageing & Society and the Journal of Aging Studies. Virpi Timonen is Professor in Social Policy and Ageing at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. A Finnish national who earned her doctorate at the University of Oxford, her work focuses on the sociology of ageing and social policies as they are unfolding in ageing societies. She has an interest in the life course from youth to old age, especially in the context of intergenerational relations within families and societies, and expertise in the Grounded Theory method. x

ONE Rethinking social policy from a capability perspective

Mara A. Yerkes, Jana Javornik and Anna Kurowska

Introduction European social policies address a broad array of issues, including (un)employment, activation, child- and elderly care, education, health, housing, migration, aging and poverty (Yerkes, 2015). The design and evaluation of these policies have been approached from multiple perspectives, including the social investment paradigm, which has featured prominently in recent research (for example, Hemerijck, 2017). With respect to this and other approaches, a key question increasingly being asked is: to what extent do European social policies empower individuals to freely use the tools and instruments created by these policies, or, in the capability language, to what extent do they enhance what individuals are truly able to do and be, their ‘capabilities’ (Sen, 1992)? We argue that the capability approach (CA) as developed

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by Sen (Sen, 1992; 1999a), and later expanded on by Nussbaum (Nussbaum, 2000; 2011) and Robeyns (Robeyns, 2005; 2017), offers a unique evaluative perspective to both researchers and practitioners of social policy (for example, Morel and Palme, 2017; Otto et al, 2017). The CA sees individuals as embedded in broader contexts, acknowledging that these contexts shape the real opportunities which individuals face (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017; Kurowska, 2018). Thus, what individuals are really able to do and be is a reflection of their capabilities, their agency (that is, being ‘active agents of change’ (Sen, 1999b: 189)) and choice (Robeyns, 2017), within the diverse contexts in which individuals are embedded (Hobson, 2014; 2016; Hvinden and Halvorsen, 2018). The increase in the use of the CA is evident across multiple social policy areas, such as disability policy (Trani et  al, 2011), education policy (Walker, 2006), employability policy (van der Klink et al, 2011), family policy – including such areas as work–family policy (den Dulk and Yerkes, 2016; Fahlén, 2013; Hobson, 2014; Korpi et al, 2013; Yerkes and den Dulk, 2015), parental leave policy (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017; Koslowski and Kadar-Satat, 2018) or childcare policy (Yerkes and Javornik, 2018), and youth transitioning from school to work (Otto, 2015). The CA has also been recently used to reconceptualise the (de)familialisation perspective in comparative family policy research (Kurowska, 2018). Applying the CA in social policy research leads to debates about its conceptualisation, measurement and application in empirical research (for example, Anand et al, 2009). A key issue in these debates is how to account for the role of social policies when analysing individual capabilities. At present, social policies are generally interpreted and applied either as explanatory factors (Hobson, 2014; 2016; Robeyns, 2017), structural constraints (Robeyns, 2017) and/or as a resource (means) to facilitate capability (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017; Kurowska, 2018; Yerkes and Javornik, 2018). Hvinden and Halvorsen (2018) and Kurowska (2018) argue that social policies are both contextual

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factors and means, dependent upon the view of the researcher. For social policy researchers, having a clear conceptualisation of the role of social policies is central to using the CA effectively. The main aim of the book is to clarify Sen’s approach (Sen, 1992; 1999a) in a social policy context, addressing this and other debates by synthesising existing research and presenting original analyses that tackle the conceptual, methodological and empirical problems encountered when using the capabilities perspective particular to social policy research and practice. This, in turn, is meant to inspire and encourage further development of the CA in relation to social policy, a field which is now rather distracted and lacks coherency. In this chapter, we discuss the key challenges and issues related to interpreting basic concepts of the CA in a social policy context. We start by briefly introducing the CA, tracing the idea of capabilities back to the writings of Aristotle and interpreting them in the context of Sen’s CA. We then discuss the theoretical and empirical debates surrounding the CA as it was further developed by Nussbaum and later interpreted by other scholars such as Robeyns. The focus here is on the main conceptual and empirical debates in relation to social policy research and practice, centred on the key concepts in Sen’s approach to capabilities: means, capabilities, functionings, conversion factors and agency. Multiple interpretations of these concepts create difficulties in applying the CA to social policy research. This book offers a way forward in addressing these issues as they apply specifically to social policy research and practice. The capability approach: its history, and its application in social policy Drawing on moral and political philosophy (Aristotle, Smith and Marx), the CA grew out of a concern for social justice, with two underpinnings: the philosophical (a concern for social justice and human good) and the economical (seeking ways to measure life quality, promoting autonomy and individual life choices).

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Aristotle’s key principle was the idea of human flourishing as ethically fundamental (see Nussbaum, 1990; Sen, 1999b: 14, 24). Advanced through moral and political philosophy, the CA values pluralism in ways of living (Robeyns, 2017) and promotes the notion of the human being as ‘in need of a totality of life activities’ and opportunities for such activities (Nussbaum, 1990). Thus, the freedom to achieve wellbeing is seen to be of moral importance and is to be understood in terms of people’s capabilities – that is, their real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value. Individuals may clearly value more than just economic utility. People with disabilities may value autonomy more than income (Burchardt, 2004). Mothers may value flexibility from employers when reconciling work and care (Yerkes et al, 2017). Emphasising capabilities, or individual freedom to achieve a wide range of valued outcomes, shifts the focus away from solely economic measures of utility towards other valued outcomes and individual capabilities to pursue these valued outcomes. Ideas around individual wellbeing and a plurality of lifestyles made the emergence of Sen’s approach appealing across a diversity of disciplines. Part of its broad appeal is that the CA is a flexible and multi-purpose framework, rather than a theory (Sen, 1992: 48). Robeyns (2017) aptly describes it as being both open-ended and underspecified: ‘It is open-ended because the general capability approach can be developed in a range of different directions, with different purposes, and it is underspecified because additional specifications are needed before the capability approach can become effective for a particular purpose’ (Robeyns, 2017: 29; emphasis in original). The broad appeal of the CA has led to multiple interpretations, with two key issues at their core. First, there are two dominant general approaches to the CA: Sen’s and Nussbaum’s. Sen’s approach, economic and philosophical in its perspective, emphasises questions of how we value good life and measure life quality (given Sen’s work on poverty and inequality). Nussbaum,

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in contrast, takes a moral–legal–political philosophical approach, arguing for a given set of ‘basic’ human capabilities to be guaranteed by governments (Nussbaum, 2000). This conceptual difference stems from the varying objectives of Sen and Nussbaum in their interpretation of the CA as well as their personal histories (Robeyns, 2005). Second, the openended, underspecified CA offers a general and broad evaluative framework to assess issues from the perspective of capability. The application of the CA, however, for purposes such as social policy analysis or theory-building, requires domain-specific knowledge, and hence further specification (Robeyns, 2017). Robeyns thus distinguishes the CA, a broad, abstract framework, from capability theories, specifically applied to particular fields. However, such distinction might be misleading because these theories can include theoretical and empirical applications or analyses.1 What we are suggesting is that it is necessary to clarify a capability approach to social policy and to distinguish the CA from capability theories in various sub-fields of social policy as a research discipline. This chapter sets out the CA to social policy, providing basic building blocks for further specification of capability ‘theories’ within specific social policy domains, as illustrated in the remaining chapters. We do this from the perspective of Sen’s approach to capability. While we recognise the contributions of both approaches, we favour the approach of Sen for being broader, and more clearly emphasising the role of situated agency in producing inequality in capabilities. Key elements of the capability approach The CA (Sen, 1992; 1999a) centres around at least five key concepts: means, capabilities, functionings, conversion factors, and agency (compare Robeyns, 2005). Capabilities are the freedoms individuals have, their ‘real opportunities’ (Robeyns, 2017; Sen, 1992) to achieve a desired outcome or functioning.

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Social policy scholars tend to view capabilities in Sen’s (1992) terms of valued functionings, or the real opportunities individuals have to pursue a life they have reason to value (Kurowska, 2018). For example, some individuals may value being a carer, and place greater value on providing care than on taking part in paid employment. The CA rests on the idea that individuals have an array of valued functionings, reflecting a diverse range of needs and desires. Whether they are able to pursue these diverse needs and desires is dependent upon their capabilities. However, Robeyns (2017: 41–45) argues that capabilities and functionings can be either positive or negative, and thus must be viewed as essentially value neutral in the abstract sense. While in some cases we might be able to distinguish positive functionings (for example, good health) or negative functionings (for example, serious illness), in many cases the value of functionings is ambiguous. Assuming that social policy is concerned with facilitating a collective wellbeing (a positive functioning for most individuals), these same policies can lead to unintended negative functionings for some groups or individuals (see for example Chapter Four, this volume). Regardless of such distinction, individuals do not have the same freedoms (capabilities) to achieve varying life pursuits, leading to inequality in outcomes, or achieved functionings (Sen, 1992). Using the example mentioned earlier, some individuals may value reconciling paid work with care for children. However, there is inequality in how individuals (are able to) reconcile paid work with care for children. Inequalities in outcomes may arise because capabilities – in this case, the capability to be in paid work and the capability to care – depend on the social and economic resources (means) to which individuals have access, conversion factors (contextual and relational aspects that shape our ability to translate resources into real opportunities) and agency. The concept of agency, much debated within the social sciences, is similarly debated within the CA. Hobson (2014; 2016) views agency as ‘situated’: one’s ability to be agentic is

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circumscribed or enhanced by individual factors such as gender, class and race. Similarly, Hvinden and Halvorsen (2018: 871) argue for a conceptualisation of ‘active agency’, referring ‘partly to the dynamic complex of persons’ self-reflection, evaluation of their own experience and observation of the world around them’. The concept of active agency is in line with Mead (1934) and Giddens (1984), who argue that agency is the way in which individuals perceive and interpret social situations (Mead, 1934) and their active response in these situations (Sen, 1999b; Shaw, 1994). The reflexive interaction with the world around them (agency – structure) can be seen as a mutual constitutive process of structuration (Giddens, 1984). Men and women may reconcile paid work and care differently because gender inhibits or enhances their agency (Hobson, 2016). At the same time, gender as a social structure shapes individual behaviour in reconciling the two. The CA emphasises such relational aspects, seeing individuals with differing freedoms to act (agency inequalities) as relationally embedded in personal and social contexts (conversion factors). Relational and contextual aspects, conversion factors in the CA, make visible the processes through which individuals with varying agency translate means into capabilities. Conversion factors exist at multiple levels (for example, individual, societal, institutional); they interact to form an individual’s unique capability set (the options and perceived alternatives from which an individual chooses). The choices individuals make are further dependent upon one’s personal history and circumstances, psychological factors, and socio-cultural influences on decision-making (Robeyns, 2017; Kurowska, 2018). Some scholars refer to conversion factors as conversion processes (for example, Hvinden and Halvorsen, 2018). From this perspective, conversion factors not only shape individuals’ freedom to achieve valued functionings, but also shape their ability to change the social structures around them, thereby affecting their active agency. The emphasis on this process can be of particular

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relevance in social policy applications of the CA. Namely, the process of translating means into capabilities through conversion factors can further elucidate the relationship between structure and agency to help ‘grasp the mechanisms behind vicious cycles of disadvantage’ (Hvinden and Halvorsen, 2018). Such nuances of the CA are useful for understanding possible feedback effects on individual wellbeing across time (Hobson, 2016; Hoogenboom et al, 2015; Hvinden and Halvorsen, 2018). A capability approach for social policy research and practice The CA, in its open-ended and underspecified form, is an attractive perspective across multiple disciplines, such as law, social sciences and economics. Two key adjustments are needed, however, to develop a capability approach to social policy. These adjustments lay the foundation for social policy applications in both research and practice. What role for social policy?

For social policy scholars and practitioners alike, a key concern in using the CA is how social policy itself fits into the capabilities framework. Within the CA, individuals do not have equal capabilities to achieve the life they have reason to value. But what role does social policy play? Is it a means, and hence a resource to individuals? Is it part of the social context (conversion factor) in which individuals operate? Or is it a way in which means are redistributed? We argue for a conceptualisation of social policy primarily as a means (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017; Kurowska, 2018; Yerkes and Javornik, 2018). Other policy scholars have viewed social policies as conversion factors, that is, as part of the social structure in which individuals are embedded (Hobson, 2014; 2016). Others argue for viewing structures (including social services and arrangements) as both resources and conversion factors (for example, Hvinden and Halvorsen, 2018).

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We propose that from the CA perspective, social policy can be primarily understood as an interdependent set of measures and instruments aiming to change human behaviour and/or improve quality of life and wellbeing. In our CA framework, social policy, developed and delivered at multiple levels, represents a means, providing the basis for individuals to operate within their ecological and social spaces (context). We understand the uniqueness of social policies in their diverse, historical and political contexts (Ginsburg, 2004) – that is, as value-laden, developed based on culturally-informed, dominant ideas (Béland, 2005; 2016) of human behaviour. Social policies provide normative reference points (Goerne, 2010; Javornik, 2014) that set the ‘rules of the game’ (Grönlund and Javornik, 2014; Javornik, 2014; North, 1990). Crucial in this regard is thus that policies are developed by human beings, who are informed by dominant ideas of what constitutes a good life; these ideas then get reflected in policies. In other words, social policies are developed in reference to implicit and explicit valued outcomes (Goerne, 2010). For example, policies centred on work–life balance inherently presume that parents need policy support to reconcile paid work with care rather than a plurality of lifestyles (Yerkes and Javornik, 2018). When evaluating social policies, the CA can be used to identify the normative reference points of the policy as well as how the policy is intended to help individuals achieve that normative reference point. A good example of how social policies operate as a means to achieving an outcome valued by policymakers is the focus on social investment in contemporary welfare states (Morel et  al, 2012; Morel and Palme, 2017). Currently, most European welfare states operate from the assumption that individuals of working age are ‘good citizens’ (Brace, 2015) when they are productive members of a society, that is, through labour force participation. Broadly speaking, this assumption is supported by the social investment approach, which primarily invests in children as future good citizens of the

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society. However, social policy developed from this perspective is criticised for focusing too narrowly on economic outcomes (see Chapters Two and Five, this volume). Applying the CA allows for a broader evaluation of policy in relation to what is valued by both policymakers (for example, ideas, Béland, 2005; 2016) and individuals (valued functionings; see Nolan, 2017; Kurowska, 2018). Seeing social policy as a means allows researchers, policymakers and practitioners to view policy as a resource to achieve a diverse set of available options and not just normative ideas of ‘good citizenship’, improving individuals’ freedoms to achieve a plurality of life forms which they may have reason to value. There may be situations when social policies are not only means but also conversion factors (Hvinden and Halvorsen, 2018; Kurowska, 2018). Viewing social policies from a capabilities perspective means not only viewing individuals in relation to the social spaces in which they are embedded, but also the relational nature of social rights embedded in social policies. In the former, individuals may be supported or limited in their capacity to access social policy as a means to achieve a valued outcome given personal, social or environmental factors (Hvinden and Halvorsen, 2018). Thereby, social policies inherently create inequalities through a process of inclusion given varying degrees of universality or selectivity. Furthermore, social policies are necessarily relational and interdependent; in some cases, they are only accessible through another policy. In the UK, for example, the means afforded to one parent through Shared Parental Leave is fully accessible to the other parent only through the use of anti-discrimination law (see Chapter Four, this volume). Although the CA is seen by some to be fairly individualised, the example of Shared Parental Leave demonstrates the relational aspect of the CA, focusing on the interconnectedness of parents’ decision-making about childcare and return to work. Thus, the UK’s parental leave policy, with gender equality as a collective aim, can enhance

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father’s capability by limiting the mother’s. In this manner, a social policy solution/instrument can be part of a broader social context that shapes individuals’ access to other social policy solutions/instruments as a means. In a CA to social policy, the question of policy coherence and accessibility becomes central, as it shapes one’s freedoms, and is therefore indicative of distributive justice. Namely, to fully use the policy, one needs to be aware of a web of policy options and be able to navigate the legal landscape. This entails understanding (1) the policy process (functional literacy), (2) the relational aspects of social rights, and (3)  the power dynamics between them (when competitive, which right supersedes). Overall, policy accessibility (the value of policy in shaping capabilities) is thus also a function of one’s awareness of the policy and the ability to navigate the system. Social policy interdependencies

We are suggesting a CA to social policy that entails two ways of moving the field forward when using the CA in social policy research and practice: recognising social policy as a means with significant interdependencies. Social policy is first and foremost a means that, when individuals have access to it, can help to achieve a wide variety of outcomes which those individuals may have reason to value. However, social policy as a means is embedded in a context of differing conversion factors. The way in which individuals engage with social policies is dependent upon their situated (Hobson, 2014) or active agency (Hvinden and Halvorsen, 2018), their embeddedness in varying social and community contexts (Yerkes and Javornik, 2018), their sense of entitlement and perceived set of alternatives (Hobson, 2016), and their functional literacy, as previously explained. Second, this ‘conversion process’ (Hvinden and Halvorsen, 2018) results in social policies being an interdependent set of measures and instruments. Social policies provide a means

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for achieving valued functionings, and also shape individuals’ capacity to access these means. Interdependence is central to any application of the CA, as individuals’ relational embeddedness to the social environment is a cornerstone of the framework (Robeyns, 2005). By extending interdependence to social policies, it becomes possible to unpack the complex ways in which social policy design: • implicitly and explicitly develops normative reference points, or provides interpretations of ‘good citizens’; • creates or aleviates social inequalities and/or positions of social (dis)advantage; • effectively helps individuals to achieve the outcomes they have reason to value (evaluating the process of means to valued and achieved functionings (Goerne, 2010)). Conclusion and outline of this volume This chapter discussed the key challenges and issues related to interpreting basic concepts of the CA and presented a CA to social policy. This approach remains purposefully broad and requires researchers to further specify capability theories within particular social policy domains. The remaining chapters of the book provide theoretical and empirical examples of such capability theories, from multiple perspectives and social policy domains. First, a CA to social policy inspires an identification of the ultimate values and goals of social policies in terms of providing individuals with resources for real opportunities to achieve doings and beings which they have reason to value. In Chapter Two, Jean-Michel Bonvin and Francesco Laruffa investigate developments in education policy, providing a comparison between the dominant, normative paradigm of European social policy, that is, social investment, and a CA. The authors argue that employability, competitiveness and economic return should not be identified as ultimate goals of education (as in social

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investment) but rather individual autonomy and capability to act as democratic citizens (as formulated within a CA). Similarily, in Chapter Three, José de São José, Virpi Timonen, Carla Amado and Sérgio Santos criticise active ageing policy in Europe and propose to redesign this policy based on the principles of a CA. The authors show how applying a CA helps to overcome three current limitations of active ageing policy. A CA to ageing replaces the goal of activity as a main policy value with the alternative of wellbeing; it expands the focus away from outcomes towards a focus on capabilities; and finally, it stresses the role of a multidimensional and bottom-up approach rather than a narrow, expert-based approach to active ageing. Second, we propose a CA to social policy whereby social policy is primarily understood as a resource (means) with significant interdependencies. Chapters Four and Five look at these complex interdependencies, investigating the extent to which social policy is a resource to enrich individuals’ lives, focusing in particular on conversion factors such as personal characteristics, social structures, and institutional and socio-economic contexts. In Chapter Four, Jana Javornik and Liz Oliver apply the CA to a social policy and legal analysis of the UK’s new shared parental leave. Combining social policy and legal scholarship they demonstrate the analytical power of the CA to consider a multi-layered macro and meso-level context within which this complex social policy operates. They identify employment relations, legislation and litigation as key conversion factors and show how these affect inequalities in parents’ capability sets. This investigation continues in Chapter Five, where Anna Kurowska and Jana Javornik, using the example of parental leave in ten European countries, focus on three interconnected valued functionings of families: for mothers to continue working after having a child; for fathers to care for a child; and for a child to be cared for by both parents. The authors argue that the extent to which parental leave really enables families to achieve these valued functionings depends on socio-economic conversion

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factors, such as living standards within and between countries, and gender pay gaps. Their comparative analysis provides evidence of significant differences in these structures both between and within welfare regime clusters, demonstrating the analytical power of the CA to recognise meaningful nuances. Third, a CA to social policy helps to highlight the importance of policy professionals and practitioners (Chapter Six) and individual agency (voice; Chapter Seven) in realising capabilities. These two chapters shift the perspective from social policy to the ‘end users’ of these policies and the professionals and practitioners who engage with them in envisioning and realising their capabilities. In Chapter Six, Jana Javornik, Mara A. Yerkes and Erik Jansen engage with social policy professionals and practitioners in a two-way, mutually enriching theory–practice conversation, which reveals potentials and pitfalls of a CA to social policy. While professionals and practitioners subscribe to the underlying idea of the CA, problems related to differences between the CA and capability theories, the absence of a common language in using the CA, and feasibility issues around local implementation inhibit the CA from being used to its full potential. In Chapter Seven, Rory Hearne and Mary Murphy provide a case study of homeless families in Dublin, describing how an innovative tool – the Participatory Action Human Rights and Capability Approach – enabled homeless families to articulate to policymakers the key issues in relation to their experiences of housing policy at the local level. Such tools have the capacity to empower families to ‘raise their voice’ in the policy sphere, contributing to the enhancement of their individual and collective agency, and ultimately, wider social policy development (agentic change). We conclude this volume by integrating these three perspectives, focusing on how to make the move from a CA to social policy, to capability theories, and, ultimately, to capabilitybased social policies.

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Note 1

A distinction between a general ‘approach’ and more specified ‘theories’ may also seem counterintuitive from an epistemology of science perspective. That notwithstanding, we maintain the dominant terminology used by capability scholars such as Robeyns for clarity.

References Anand, P, Hunter, G, Carter, I, et  al (2009) ‘The development of capability indicators’, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 10(1), 125–152. Béland, D (2005) ‘Ideas and social policy: An institutionalist perspective’, Social Policy and Administration 39(1), 1–18. Béland, D (2016) ‘Ideas and institutions in social policy research’, Social Policy and Administration 50(6), 734–750. Brace, L (2015) ‘Reflections on the good citizen’, in B Anderson and V Hughes (eds) Citizenship and its Others, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 10–27. Burchardt, T (2004) ‘Capabilities and disability: The capabilities framework and the social model of disability’, Disability & Society 19(7), 735–751. den Dulk, L and Yerkes, MA (2016) ‘Capabilities to combine work and family in the Netherlands: Challenging or reinforcing the one-and-a-half earner model?’, Japanese Journal of Family Sociology 28(2), 180–192. Fahlén, S (2013) ‘Capabilities and childbearing intentions in Europe’, European Societies 15(5), 639–662. Giddens, A (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Cambridge: Polity Press. Ginsburg, N (2004) ‘Structured diversity: A framework for critically comparing welfare states?’, in P Kennett (ed) A Handbook of Comparative Social Policy, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp 201–216.

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Goerne, A (2010) ‘The capability approach in social policy analysis: Yet another concept?’, Working papers on the Reconciliation of Work and Welfare in Europe. RECWOWE Publication, Dissemination and Dialogue Centre, Edinburgh, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/ papers.cfm?abstract_id=1616210. Grönlund, A and Javornik, J (2014) ‘Great expectations. Dualearner policies and the management of work–family conflict: The examples of Sweden and Slovenia, Families, Relationships and Societies 3(1), 51–65. Hemerijck, A (ed) (2017) The Uses of Social Investment, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hobson, B (ed) (2014) Worklife Balance: The Agency and Capabilities Gap, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hobson, B (2016) ‘Gendered dimensions and capabilities: Opportunities, dilemmas and challenges’, Critical Sociology, doi:10.1177/0896920516683232. Hoogenboom, M, Kruiswijk, W and Yerkes, MA (2015) ‘Reconciling work and informal care across organisations: A question of capabilities?’, paper presented at Annual ESPANet conference, Odense. Hvinden, B and Halvorsen, R (2018) ‘Mediating agency and structure in sociology: What role for conversion factors?’, Critical Sociology 44(6), 865–881. Javornik, J (2014) ‘Measuring state de-familialism: Contesting postsocialist exceptionalism’, Journal of European Social Policy 24(3), 240–257. Javornik, J and Kurowska, A (2017) ‘Work and care opportunities under different parental leave systems: Gender and class inequalities in Northern Europe’, Social Policy & Administration 51(4), 617–637. Korpi, W, Ferrarini, T and Englund, S (2013) ‘Women’s opportunities under different family policy constellations: Gender, class, and inequality tradeoffs in Western countries re-examined’, Social Politics 20(1), 1–40.

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Koslowski, A and Kadar-Satat, G (2018) ‘Fathers at work: Explaining the gaps between entitlement to leave policies and uptake’, Community, Work & Family, 1–17, doi: 10.1080/13668803.2018.1428174. Kurowska, A (2018) ‘(De)familialization and (de)genderization: Competing or complementary perspectives in comparative policy analysis?’, Social Policy & Administration 52(1), 29–49. Mead, GH (1934) Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist – George Herbert Mead, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Morel, N, Palier, B and Palme, J (2012) Towards a Social Investment Welfare State? Ideas, Policies and Challenges, Bristol: Policy Press. Morel, N and Palme, J (2017) ‘A normative foundation for the social investment approach?’, in A Hemerijck (ed) The Uses of Social Investment, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 150–157. Nolan, B (2017) ‘Social investment: The thin line between evidence based research and political advocacy’, in A Hemerijck (ed) The Uses of Social Investment, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 43–50. North, DC (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, M (1990) ‘Nature, Function and Capability: Aristotle on Political Distribution’, in G Patzig (ed) Aristoteles’ Politik: Akten des XI. Symposium Aristotelicum, Friedrichshafen/Bodensee 25.8–3.9. 1987, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Nussbaum, MC (2000) Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, MC (2011) Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach, Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Otto, HU (ed) (2015) Facing Trajectories from School to Work: Towards a Capability-friendly Youth Policy in Europe, Heidelberg, New York, Dordrecht and London: Springer. Otto, HU, Walker, M and Ziegler, H (2017) Capability-friendly Policies Enhancing Individual and Social Development, Bristol: Policy Press. Robeyns, I (2005) ‘The capability approach: A theoretical survey’, Journal of Human Development 6(1), 93–117.

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Robeyns, I (2017) Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. Sen, A (1992) Inequality Reexamined, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sen, A (1999a) Commodities and Capabilities, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sen, A (1999b) Development as Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shaw, SM (1994) ‘Gender, leisure, and constraint: towards a framework for the analysis of women’s leisure’, Journal of Leisure Research 26(1), 8–22. Trani, J-F, Bakhshi, P, Bellanca, N, et al (2011) ‘Disabilities through the capability approach lens: Implications for public policies’, ALTER – European Journal of Disability Research/Revue Européenne de Recherche sur le Handicap 5(3), 143–157. van der Klink, JL, Bültmann, U, Brouwer, S, et al (2011) ‘Duurzame inzetbaarheid bij oudere werknemers, werk als waarde’, Gedrag & Organisatie 24(4), 342–356. Walker, M (2006) ‘Towards a capability-based theory of social justice for education policy-making’, Journal of Education Policy 21(2), 163–185. Yerkes, MA (2015) ‘Social policy’, in J Baxter (ed) Oxford Bibliographies in Sociology, New York: Oxford University Press. Yerkes, MA and den Dulk, L (2015) ‘Arbeid-en-zorgbeleid in de participatiesamenleving’, Tijdschrift voor Arbeidsvraagstukken 2015(31), 510–528. Yerkes, MA and Javornik, J (2018) ‘Creating capabilities: Childcare policies in comparative perspective’, Journal of European Social Policy, doi: 10.1177/0958928718808421. Yerkes, MA, Martin, B, Baxter, J, et al (2017) ‘An unsettled bargain? Mothers’ perceptions of justice and fairness in paid work’, Journal of Sociology 53(2), 476–491.

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TWO Education as investment? A comparison of the capability and social investment approaches to education policy

Jean-Michel Bonvin and Francesco Laruffa

Introduction Social investment represents to date one of the most relevant normative frameworks to think about welfare reform in Europe (for example, Morel et al, 2012a; EC, 2013; Hemerijck, 2018), stressing the positive consequences of social policy in terms of both social and economic outcomes. Indeed, contributing to the health and education of the population, social policy not only improves people’s quality of life but also enhances their productivity as workers, thus enhancing economic growth. Hence, one of the central aspects of the social investment strategy involves the focus on improving individuals’ human capital. Indeed, in some versions of social investment, the emphasis on

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investing in education is pushed so far that it is almost suggested that investments in education can replace social protection and redistribution policies (for a discussion and critique of these positions, see for example, Morel et  al, 2012b; Solga, 2014; Deeming and Smyth, 2015). The argument is that once individuals have been equipped for the labour market, they no longer need other forms of social policy because they become self-sufficient and can look after themselves. At any rate, in contemporary debates education policy is considered a key area of social policy that concerns not only children and young people but also all people of working age (through retraining and lifelong learning). In this chapter we compare the social investment and the capability approaches (CAs) to education policy. In order to understand the role of education policy in social investment we refer to the Communication Rethinking Education: Investing in Skills for Better Socio-economic Outcomes adopted by the European Commission in 2012 (EC, 2012) and cited in the ‘Social Investment Package’ adopted in 2013 (EC, 2013). This Communication suggests that the role of education policy is that of fostering the right skills for the flourishing of the economy. The consequence is that education is mainly interpreted as a means for improving young and older people’s productivity as workers. To be sure, fostering people’s employability is also a ‘social’ goal: it increases the chances that they can find a good (stable, well-paid, and so on) job in the labour market, thereby enhancing their wellbeing. However, focusing on employability, social investment marginalises other important roles of education: not only its intrinsic value but also its contribution to democratic citizenship through the formation of citizens (Lister, 2003). This vision is then contrasted with the role that education plays in the CA – a normative approach that frames progress as the expansion of people’s real freedom to lead the life they have reason to value rather than in terms of economic growth

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(for example, Sen, 1999; Nussbaum, 2000; Chapter One, this volume). We argue that the CA allows emphasising the contribution of (initial or lifelong) education to individuals’ autonomy and to democratic citizenship. From this viewpoint, the CA could improve the normative basis of social investment (see also Morel and Palme, 2017), allowing for a broadening of the perspective on education policy beyond the focus on human capital that currently informs social investment. The value of education in social investment As the title of the EC Communication Rethinking Education: Investing in Skills for Better Socio-economic Outcomes (EC, 2012) suggests, its goal is that of ‘rethinking education’, that is, not simply recommending reforming education policy in a given area but rethinking the meaning and purpose of education policy as a whole. While the Communication begins by acknowledging that ‘The broad mission of education and training encompasses objectives such as active citizenship, personal development and well-being’ and sees these goals going ‘hand-in-hand with the need to upgrade skills for employability’ (EC, 2012: 2), the rest of the Communication focuses on the capacity of education policies to deliver ‘the right skills for employment’ (EC, 2012: 2). The reason for focusing on employability is that ‘against the backdrop of sluggish economic growth and a shrinking workforce due to demographic ageing, the most pressing challenges for Member States are to address the needs of the economy and focus on solutions to tackle fast-rising youth unemployment’ (EC, 2012: 2). The Commission seems thus to be promoting a discourse of quasi-naturalised ‘challenges’, whereby it is necessary to adapt the educational systems to the ‘needs of the economy’ and to the ‘inevitable changes in the labour market’ (EC, 2012: 2). In this changed context, characterised by the emergence of the ‘knowledge-based economy’ and by harsher international competition, the central problem is that

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‘European education and training systems continue to fall short in providing the right skills for employability, and are not working adequately with business or employers to bring the learning experience closer to the reality of the working environment’ – and these ‘skills mismatches’ risk undermining ‘European industry’s competitiveness’ (EC, 2012: 2). From this perspective, enhancing people’s employability should become the most important focus of education. What are the consequences of this new way of thinking about education for education policy? In the document, we have identified five main consequences of adopting the social investment approach for education policy in terms of policy priorities and/or areas of intervention. First, attention should be focused on developing ‘entrepreneurial skills’, because ‘they not only contribute to new business creation but also to the employability of young people’ (EC, 2012: 4). Second, scientific subjects are of the utmost importance. Indeed, the demand for a ‘qualified workforce in technology and research-intensive sectors is and will remain at a high level, with an impact on the demand for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) related skills’. Hence, the Commission identifies STEM ‘as a priority area of education’ (EC, 2012: 4). Third, ‘the ability to speak foreign languages is a factor for competitiveness’: languages are ‘more and more important to increase levels of employability and mobility of young people’, while businesses ‘require the language skills needed to function in the global marketplace’ (EC, 2012: 5). Fourth, the Commission encourages reducing the ‘distance between the educational environment and the workplace’ (EC, 2012: 5). Thus, priority should be given to vocational education and training since ‘Work based learning and notably apprenticeships and other dual models help facilitate transition from learning to work’ (EC, 2012: 6). In this context, it is necessary to make curricula ‘more relevant to the workplace through ongoing collaboration with business and employers, for

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example entrepreneurs brought into the classroom to enhance learning’ (EC, 2012: 11). Fifth, great importance is attached to assessing learning outcomes. Rather than focusing on degrees or on time spent in school, education policy should be assessed in terms of the ‘knowledge, skills and competences’ acquired by students (EC, 2012: 7). Thus, Member States should ‘modernise’ their assessment systems with a view to prioritising those areas where the return on investment is the highest: ‘Information on the quality and quantity of skills across the population will allow authorities to better map potential shortages and focus on areas with the best returns on investment’ (EC, 2012: 7). The Communication clearly emphasises that priority should be accorded to ‘the earlier stages of education, to prevent early educational failure and its consequences in adulthood (school achievement, employment rates, earnings, crime prevention, health, etc.)’ (EC, 2012: 12). This seems in line with the more general social investment logic, whereby early preventive interventions yield the highest returns on investment. The reason is that preventive interventions generate savings for the public budget in the longer term since the costs associated with ‘preparing’ are much lower than those associated with ‘repairing’. The capability approach and its implications for education policy The CA is a normative framework for thinking about development and quality of life (for example, Sen, 1999; Nussbaum, 2000; Chapter One, this volume). It identifies development not with economic growth but with the promotion of people’s capability, that is, the real freedom that people enjoy to lead the kind of life they have reason to value. According to Sen, the focus on people’s real freedom to lead a valuable life provides better information on quality of life than the focus on material resources, which are only the means to reach a good life, rather than ends in themselves. Moreover, quality of life

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in the CA is to be differentiated from happiness or preferencesatisfaction. Contrary to what is suggested within utilitarianism, the CA does not consider happiness as the highest good. The problem of focusing on happiness for assessing wellbeing or quality of life is that people tend to adapt their preferences to the context in which they live. Thus, rich people may feel unhappy if they cannot buy a luxury car (the problem of ‘expensive tastes’) whereas poor people may be happy to get a small portion of rice per day – this is the problem of ‘adaptive preferences’, whereby poor people tend to adjust their desires to their deprived situation. However, if underdogs bring ‘desires in line with feasibility’, the ‘metric of desire’, which underlies utilitarian conceptions, does not have much fairness (Sen, 1987: 11): The battered slave, the broken unemployed, the hopeless destitute, the tamed housewife, may have the courage to desire little, but the fulfilment of those disciplined desires is not a sign of great success and cannot be treated in the same way as the fulfilment of the confident and demanding desires of the better placed. (Sen, 1987: 11) The CA also gives democracy a central role (for example, Sen, 1999; 2009; see also: Anderson, 2003; Crocker, 2006). However, democracy is not (only) seen as a formal political regime based on majoritarian elections. Rather, it is interpreted as the system that allows deliberating on political issues and that requires – in order to be effective and just – including all people and taking into account their views. Against this background, Bonvin and Farvaque (2006) have highlighted the importance of promoting all people’s ‘capability for voice’, that is, the possibility that they have to express their opinion and make it count within the public sphere. This capability appears central because it allows people to influence public discourse that in turn shapes the priorities pursued in public policies. Building on Sen (1985), Bonvin

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and Laruffa (2018b) argue that social policy should conceive beneficiaries not only as passive ‘receivers’, but also as ‘doers’ and ‘judges’. The ‘receiver’ dimension points to the fact that every human being is vulnerable and – more acutely during certain phases of life such as childhood and old age – needs external support. The ‘doer’ dimension implies that human beings are able to make a useful contribution to society and to flourish through a variety of activities. These certainly include having a decent job in the labour market but also embrace other valuable activities, such as care work, volunteering and community involvement. Finally, human beings are also ‘judges’, that is, they have their own aspirations and are able to voice them and make them count in the course of public deliberation about the common good, thereby influencing the direction of social change. These three dimensions – ‘receivers’, ‘doers’ and ‘judges’ – are profoundly interconnected in the capability perspective; accordingly, the setting up of a genuinely capability-friendly democracy requires tackling socio-economic inequalities affecting the ‘receiver’, inequalities in agency capabilities that undermine the ‘doer’ dimension, together with political inequalities that impede the ‘judge’ dimension to flourish (Bonvin et al, 2018; Bonvin and Laruffa, 2018a). Public policies are thus called to support vulnerable people, to promote their agency and their political capacity. What are the implications of this conception for education policy? A good way to show these implications is by way of contrasting the capability perspective to education with the human capital approaches, which underlie the social investment conception of education. There are at least four major differences between both conceptions (see also Sen, 1997; 1999; Robeyns, 2006; Bonvin, 2019). First, concerning the goals of education, the human capital approach sees education mainly as instrumental to economic purposes and aims at increasing people’s employability in order to boost both individual and collective productivity. In contrast,

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the CA envisages education in the perspective of enhancing capabilities, that is, promoting real freedoms to lead a good life. This certainly encompasses having a valuable job but does not boil down to this sole dimension. Thus, while the goal of education is clearly specified in the human capital perspective, it remains more open and vague in the CA. In Sen’s view (1997), the two approaches are not opposed, but complementary. In line with a broad understanding of the ‘doer’ dimension, the CA allows for the integration of other aspects than the promotion of economic productivity via education. This opens up the possibility of a non-paternalistic view of education, not seeking to adapt people to the ‘needs of the economy’, but allowing them to develop their own aspirations and to pursue them with adequate educational means. This is also in line with a different way to envisage economic growth. The human capital approach seems to consider economic growth as an end in itself, interpreting human beings as means (that is, focusing on how human beings can contribute to economic growth). In contrast, the CA envisages growth as a means toward human flourishing – which allows assigning education a broader role. Robeyns (2006) argues that the human capital approach values education only instrumentally, thereby neglecting the intrinsic value of education. Furthermore, she distinguishes between economic and non-economic instrumental roles and argues that the human capital approach takes into account only the economic instrumental roles of education. Thus, at the individual level, education is appreciated for enhancing people’s economic opportunities in the labour market whereas at the collective level, it is valued as a driver of economic growth. However, education can also have non-economic instrumental roles. While at the individual level education may, for example, have a positive impact on health, at the collective level it can improve the quality of democracy. The CA takes into account all these relevant dimensions, it thereby allows having a broader view on education than the human capital perspective.

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Second, the CA requires moving beyond a utilitarian view of education, which implicitly informs the human capital approach. The risk of focusing on promoting people’s happiness is that it could boil down to adapting people’s preferences and aspirations to what seems possible in the present context. In such a case, education would be a matter of teaching people how to adapt to and be content with their living circumstances, that is, the main purpose of education would be to foster the adaptive preferences required by the context in which people live. This coincides with a paternalistic view of education where people are not allowed to take part in the discussion about what constitutes a good life or a good society, but called to endorse the prevailing vision about these issues. Such a view lies in sharp contrast with the CA to education, which emphasises the objective of enhancing all people’s capabilities. Fostering adaptability through the promotion of adaptive preferences is not the same as developing capabilities and real freedoms to lead the life one has reason to value. In other words, education is not a matter of learning compliance with social norms or with the requirements of economic productivity, it is also a matter of developing one’s own aspirations and being able to push them in a public debate, with a view to supporting the ‘judge’ dimension. Hence, education policy should promote individuals’ ability to reflect critically on the nature of the good life and the good society. This requires preventing the formation of adaptive preferences and low aspirations, with a view to strengthening people’s ‘capacity to aspire’ (Appadurai, 2004).1 At the individual level, this function of education in promoting aspirations enhances the possibilities for individuals to autonomously form their own conception of the good. At societal level, people’s real freedom to voice their aspirations seems to be an essential element of democracy (Bifulco, 2013; Bonvin and Laruffa, 2018a) as this implies the possibility to imagine more emancipatory alternatives than the status quo and to efficiently defend them in a public debate. In this light, education policy should be considered not only

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as a means for individual flourishing in the labour market, but also as a ‘conversion factor of democracy’, helping to convert a formal democracy into a substantive and real one, where all people are allowed to act as ‘judges’ (Bonvin and Laruffa, 2018a). In this perspective, the objective of education is to equalise as far as possible not only citizens’ cognitive and communicative capacities but also their ‘capacity to aspire’ – which together enable their political agency. Third, these differences between the capability and human capital approaches also translate into divergent views about the actual content of education, that is, the subjects taught and the pedagogical methods mobilised. As emphasised by Walker (2012), the human capital approach induces a focus on subjects that can demonstrate their economic instrumental value, that is, their contribution to individual employability and economic competitiveness. Accordingly, other subjects are considered as less important and ought to be given less attention. In other words, the yardstick of education is provided by the needs of the economy and not by the development of capabilities. Of course, these two goals are not incompatible, but they suggest a different view on the content of education: more restrictive in one case (the human capital approach and its focus on marketable skills) and more encompassing in the other one (the CA, which includes all skills and qualifications that can contribute to the enhancement of capabilities). The pedagogical methods also differ: in the human capital approach, education is envisaged, so to say, as a passive process. Trainees need to acquire a range of skills that have been defined beforehand, they are not active producers of skills, but only passive ‘receivers’. By contrast, the CA to education requires that trainees also become actors in the educational process, able to build their own aspirations and participate in the framing of the labour market and of society at large. They thus learn to become ‘doers’ and ‘judges’, that is, contributors to the economy and society on their own terms and participants to the public debate with the capacity to push

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their values and aspirations. In such a context, the purpose of education is not only to boost economic productivity, but to create active citizens who are able to participate in the democratic life of society. Finally, the theory of human capital is often associated to what Peck and Theodore (2000) call ‘supply-side fundamentalism’, whereby investing in people’s human capital is considered sufficient for creating employment opportunities. However, this view neglects demand-side issues and is thus inadequate. Indeed, supply-side programmes are most effective ‘where jobs are readily available’ whereas ‘they tend to flounder in those areas where they are needed most – regions of high unemployment and structural economic decline’ (Peck and Theodore, 2000: 733). This argument also applies beyond labour market issues: contrary to a widespread view, investing in education alone cannot solve all sorts of social problems (see for example, Solga, 2014 on the insufficiency of investing in human capital for reducing inequality). This is because the human capital approach rests on an individualistic perspective, which tends to neglect structural factors. The CA, in contrast, takes into account the context in which people live. Indeed, capabilities are not individual characteristics. Referring to people’s real freedom, capabilities always emerge from the interaction or combination between individual and societal factors. For example, the capability of a disabled person to move around freely is influenced not only by his or her physical condition but also by the societal infrastructures and social norms that characterise the context in which this person lives. As a matter of fact, non-discriminatory attitudes among the population enable her to go out without fear; and an efficient and accessible transportation system expands her freedom to move around. Concerning labour market issues, the fact that capabilities are the result of the interaction of individual and societal factors means that enhancing people’s employability is insufficient for expanding their ‘capability to work’ (Bonvin, 2012). Indeed, if

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there are no jobs available people are deprived of their capability to work, no matter how employable they are. As Orton (2011: 357) puts it, ‘employability without employment does not make sense in a capabilities perspective’. The role of education and social policy in the social investment and capability approaches: justification, context and type of skills In order to compare the different roles that education policy plays in the social investment and CAs, it is possible to distinguish between three levels of analysis: the justification rationale for education policy, the context in which it is located and the type of skills that it should promote. Table 2.1 synthesises the main differences between both approaches with regard to these three levels, which are then detailed in the following paragraphs. Within social investment, at the level of the justification rationale, (initial and lifelong) education policy is largely legitimised through reference to notions such as ‘employability’, ‘competitiveness’, ‘mobility’ and the economic returns that investments in education and training deliver in terms of employment growth and productivity. Along the same line, social policy interventions including a training component, such as active labour market policies, are justified mainly by their financial returns in terms of reduced caseload and increased productivity of beneficiaries. At the level of the context in which education policy is located, social investment describes an environment constituted by inevitable ‘changes’, which require an answer from public policies. In particular, they should help individuals to adapt to such transformations and/or make people capable to respond to them. In this approach, societal transformations such as the emergence of the knowledge-based economy and the linked technological changes, the increased international competition and a deregulated labour market are treated as ‘increasingly inevitable changes’ (EC, 2012: 2). Thus, the social investment perspective involves to a large extent the

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Table 2.1: The role of education policy in the social investment and the capability approaches Justification rationale

Context

Kind of skills promoted

Social Employability, investment competitiveness, mobility, economic return, employment growth

Deterministic/ de-politicised: inevitable transformations (e.g. increased international competition and rise of the knowledgebased economy)

Entrepreneurial skills, foreign languages, science, technology, engineering, mathematics, ‘specific skills’ (vocational training)

Capability approach

Open/politicised: the definition of societal challenges is a political matter; individuals’ preferences can be adapted to the status quo or encouraged to aspire for societal changes

Not only the skills needed to find a job but also those necessary to form an autonomous conception of the good and to become a full democratic citizen (e.g. critical thinking) – mostly present in arts and humanities and in school curricula focused on ‘general skills’

Individual autonomy and capacity to act as democratic citizens

de-politicisation of contemporary socio-economic conditions, which are presented as being outside the democratic control: the reform of education, and social policy more broadly, is then framed as a technical – rather than political – matter; an issue of adapting individuals to a changed context through a process of ‘modernisation’ of welfare states (Laruffa, 2015; 2018). In short, education and social policies are driven by adaptive rather than transformative concerns: the objective is to adapt the people to the world as it is, not to transform this

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world in order to increase the likelihood that people are able to lead a flourishing life. Finally, at the level of the kind of skills on which education and social policy at large should focus, social investment stresses the importance of entrepreneurial skills, foreign languages, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In this context, special emphasis is put on the merits of vocational training systems that provide people with the skills they need to find a job. In the same vein, active labour market policies are called to equip people with the skills required by the labour market. The CA to education policy differs from the social investment approach at all three levels. First, at the level of the justification rationale the CA stresses the intrinsic value of initial and lifelong education, as well as its instrumental importance in expanding individuals’ capabilities and in strengthening democratic citizenship. Education policy is not envisaged only as a tool for boosting productivity, but also as a way to enhance capabilities. Second, at the level of the context, the CA challenges an over-deterministic interpretation of the social context. There are no obvious inevitable changes or challenges that require quasi-automatic answers. The formulation of problems and the framing of challenges is a political matter. Indeed, the same social reality can be described differently from different viewpoints so that any description of social reality involves a choice between these various possible viewpoints (Sen, 1980; 1993; Bonvin et al, 2018). From this perspective, the definition of the problems and ‘challenges’ that society is facing should be subject to a democratic deliberation. In this context, education, and social policy more broadly, can play a crucial role in equipping all members of society equally – as far as possible – with the knowledge and competencies they need for entering the democratic debate on societal ‘problems’ and ‘solutions’. Moreover, they can prevent the formation of adaptive preferences, opening people’s horizons, challenging adaptation to the status quo and enhancing their ‘capacity to

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aspire’ (Appadurai, 2004). Thus, education and social policy can nourish aspiration for social justice and social change, strengthening the capacity to imagine more emancipatory alternatives to the status quo. The objective is to promote the transformative capacity of beneficiaries, rather than simply adapt them to the existing state of affairs. Third, with regard to the kind of skills promoted by a capability-enhancing education policy, it seems that individuals should be let free to choose what they want to learn rather than being encouraged to go in a certain direction, such as the scientific subjects. However, given the importance accorded to those subjects in many approaches to education and lifelong learning, it is worthwhile stressing the crucial importance of the humanities within a capability theory. Indeed, the arts and humanities provide a necessary contribution to citizenship and democracy, improving the capacity for critical thinking, empathy and tolerance (Nussbaum, 2010). This does not imply denying the value of other skills, such as in science and technology, but recalling that other subjects are equally important and valuable. In short, education and social policy at large should focus not only on improving people’s employability, increasing the skills they need to be successful in the labour market but also on promoting their autonomous and critical thinking (Laruffa, 2016), which seem essential preconditions of all other capabilities, including that of participating in society as democratic citizens and taking part in the public debate on the nature of the good society. Taken together, these three differences between the social investment and CAs point to a very different conception of education and social policy. Social investment aims at equipping people with the skills that are needed to boost their productivity in the labour market as it is (that is, to adapt to the exigencies of the economy), while the CA advocates providing the set of skills that are needed to allow people leading a life they have reason to value not only in the economy but in society at large, which

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also induces providing them with the required skills to promote and struggle for the transformation of the economic, social and cultural context into a more capability-friendly environment. Two main aspects need special emphasis in this respect: first, while social investment purports a restrictive view of the ‘doer’, mostly connected to participation in the labour market, and tends to neglect the ‘judge’ dimension (by downplaying the transformative capacities of people and focusing on their capacity to adapt), the CA advocates an encompassing view of the ‘doer’ and pays due attention to the ‘judge’ dimension; second, the social investment approach to education, at least in the conception purported by the EU, seems to suggest that social policy, conceived as a kind of educational policy, that is, focusing on individual factors, is sufficient to promote people’s wellbeing, whereas the CA insists that public action should not only aim at reforming or equipping individuals, but also at reforming the socio-economic context and social structures. Conclusion In this chapter we have argued that the CA can provide a more adequate normative orientation for framing education policy in Europe than the social investment perspective as endorsed by the European Commission. Indeed, the CA takes a broader view of education, which recognises both its intrinsic value as well as its instrumental roles beyond the economic one. In this perspective, education policy, and social policy more broadly, should not only improve people’s skills for the labour market but also enhance their capacity for autonomous thinking, which is a fundamental precondition for all other capabilities. To be sure, the fact that capabilities emerge from the interaction between individual and societal characteristics impedes the framing of education policy as a substitute for social protection, redistributive policies and demand-side interventions in the labour market – as the social investment discourse sometimes seems to imply. Nevertheless,

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education policy can play a crucial role in expanding people’s capabilities, provided that it is framed more broadly than as an economic investment and a mechanical response to given societal ‘challenges’. In particular, instead of focusing on the economic returns of investing in education or on the ‘needs of the economy’, the CA equally emphasises the importance of education for democratic citizenship. Thus, education policy should be viewed not only as a driver of employability, but also as a conversion factor of democracy, thereby supporting the transformation of a formal democracy into a real one. In this context, there are no obvious ‘needs of the economy’ that require urgent answers in terms of welfare reform and education policy. Rather, citizens themselves should be able and allowed to define what these challenges and needs are, deliberating on the nature of the ‘good society’ and the ‘good life’. Education policy, as an integral part of social policy, plays a key role in enabling citizens to engage in such democratic deliberation. In more concrete terms, adopting the CA has two major policy implications. First, education policy should be seen as a complement – rather than a substitute – of social protection. Training people is important, no doubt, but it cannot be done at the expenses of providing support via cash benefits or in-kind interventions. Both the ‘receiver’ and the ‘doer’ dimensions are needed to enhance people’s capabilities and their real freedom to lead a life they have reason to value. Second, education policy should not only focus on transmitting skills for the labour market but also on developing people’s aspirations and their ‘competences’ as democratic citizens. This requires a renewed emphasis on general skills, arts and humanities as well as on pedagogical methods that encourage students to become ‘doers’ and ‘judges’ rather than treating them as passive ‘receivers’ of information and knowledge. This is indeed a crucial prerequisite toward a conception of education and social policy that promotes active citizenship.

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Note 1

The ‘capacity to aspire’ involves the capacity to imagine alternative possible worlds and more emancipatory futures (see also Hobson, 2011). In our view, it would be more appropriate to speak of ‘capability to aspire’, thus emphasising that it is not an individual skill, but that it emerges from the interaction of individual and social parameters.

References Anderson, E (2003) ‘Sen, Ethics, and Democracy’, Feminist Economics 9(2–3), 239–261. Appadurai, A (2004) ‘The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition’, in V Rao and M Walton (eds) Culture and Public Action, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, pp 59–84. Bifulco, L (2013) ‘Citizen participation, agency and voice’, European Journal of Social Theory 16(2), 174–187. Bonvin, J-M (2012) ‘Individual working lives and collective action: An introduction to capability for work and capability for voice’, Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research 18(1), 9–18. Bonvin, J-M (2019) ‘Vocational education and training beyond human capital: A capability approach’, in S McGrath, M Mulder, J Papier and R Suart (eds) Handbook of Vocational Education and Training: Developments in the Changing World of Work, Dordrecht, Springer (forthcoming). Bonvin, J-M and Farvaque, N (2006) ‘Promoting capability for work: The role of local actors’, in S Deneulin, M Nebel and N Sagovsky (eds) Transforming Unjust Structures: The Capability Approach, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp 121–142. Bonvin, J-M and Laruffa, F (2018a) ‘Deliberative democracy in the real world: The contribution of the capability approach’, International Review of Sociology 28(2), 216–233. Bonvin, J-M and Laruffa, F (2018b) ‘Human beings as receivers, doers and judges: The anthropological foundations of sustainable public action in the capability approach’, Community, Work and Family 21(5), 502–518.

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Bonvin, J-M, Laruffa, F and Rosenstein, E (2018) ‘Towards a critical sociology of democracy: The potential of the capability approach’, Critical Sociology 44(6), 953–968. Crocker, D (2006) ‘Sen and Deliberative Democracy’, in A Kaufman (ed) Capabilities Equality: Basic Issues and Problems, New York: Routledge, pp 155–197. Deeming, C and Smyth, P (2015) ‘Social investment after neoliberalism: Policy paradigms and political platforms’, Journal of Social Policy 44(2), 297–318. EC (European Commission) (2012) Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions. Rethinking Education: Investing in Skills for Better Socio-economic Outcomes, Brussels: EC. EC (European Commission) (2013) Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions. Towards Social Investment for Growth and Cohesion: Including Implementing the European Social Fund 2014–2020, Brussels: EC. Hemerijck, A (2018) ‘Social investment as a policy paradigm’, Journal of European Public Policy 25(6), 810–827. Hobson, B (2011) ‘The agency gap in work–life balance: Applying Sen’s capabilities framework within European contexts’, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 18(2), 147–167. Laruffa, F (2015) ‘Social investment: Towards a more social Europe?’, in A Lechevalier and J Wielgohs (eds) Social Europe: A Dead End, Kopenhagen: Djoef Publishing, pp 215–236. Laruffa, F (2016) ‘The capability approach as a critical yardstick for the employability paradigm’, Sociologia del Lavoro 141, 23–37. Laruffa, F (2018) ‘Social investment: Diffusing ideas for redesigning citizenship after neo-liberalism?’, Critical Social Policy 38(4), 688–706. Lister, R (2003) ‘Investing in the citizen-workers of the future: Transformations in citizenship and the state under New Labour’, Social Policy and Administration 37(5), 427–443.

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Morel, N, Palier, B and Palme, J (eds) (2012a) Towards a Social Investment Welfare State? Ideas, Policies and Challenges, Bristol: Policy Press. Morel, N, Palier, B, and Palme, J (2012b) ‘Social investment: A paradigm in search of a new economic model and political mobilisation’, in N Morel, B Palier and J Palme (eds) Towards a Social Investment Welfare State? Ideas, Policies and Challenges, Bristol: Policy Press, pp 353–376. Morel, N and Palme, J (2017) ‘A normative foundation for the social investment approach?’, in A Hemerijck (ed) The Uses of Social Investment, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 150–157. Nussbaum, M (2000) Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, M (2010) Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Orton, M (2011) ‘Flourishing lives: The capabilities approach as a framework for new thinking about employment, work and welfare in the 21st century’, Work, Employment & Society 25(2), 352–360. Peck, J and Theodore, N (2000) ‘Beyond employability’, Cambridge Journal of Economics 24(6), 729–749. Robeyns, I (2006) ‘Three models of education: Rights, capabilities and human capital’, Theory and Research in Education 4(1), 69–84. Sen, A (1980) ‘Description as choice’, Oxford Economic Papers 32(3), 353–369. Sen, A (1985) ‘Well-being, agency and freedom: The Dewey Lectures 1984’, The Journal of Philosophy 82(4), 169–221. Sen, A (1987) ‘The standard of living: The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 1985’, in G Hawthorn (ed) The Standard of Living, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sen, A (1993) ‘Positional objectivity’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 22(2), 126–145. Sen, A (1997) ‘Editorial: Human capital and human capability’, World Development 25(12), 1951–1961. Sen, A (1999) Development as Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sen, AK (2009) The Idea of Justice, London: Penguin.

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Solga, H (2014) ‘Education, economic inequality and the promises of the social investment state’, Socio-Economic Review 12(2), 269–297. Walker, M (2012) ‘A capital or capabilities education narrative in a world of staggering inequalities’, International Journal of Educational Development 32, 384–393.

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THREE From ‘active’ to ‘capable’: a capability framework for policy and practice on ageing and later life

José de São José, Virpi Timonen, Carla Amado and Sérgio Santos

Introduction Population ageing has raised several critical issues for multiple social policy domains, including pensions, healthcare and longterm care. In the European Union (EU), the dominant policy framework designed to address the challenges of population ageing is called ‘active ageing’ (AA). There is no consensus around what exactly AA means, but it usually refers to the idea of exhorting older people to engage in relevant economic and social activities and to be independent and autonomous. The ‘Council Declaration on the European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations’ (Council of the European Union, 2012), hereinafter referred to as ‘Council Declaration’, expects

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that the EU policy on AA will improve productivity, enhance solidarity between generations and contribute to promoting employment and reducing poverty and social exclusion, helping in this way to meet the targets of the Europe 2020 Strategy. However, the EU policy on AA exhibits several limitations that compromise the promotion of the older people’s wellbeing and quality of life. This chapter proposes the adoption of an alternative framework for developing policies and practices to deal with the challenges of population ageing. This framework is based on the capability approach (CA) and is constituted by eight principles that, taken as a whole, shift the ‘normative reference point’ (see Chapter One, this volume) from activity (mainly economic and social activity) to the real opportunities older people have (their capabilities) to do what they value and be the persons they want to be. In the ambit of this framework, policy and professional practice must focus on the promotion of the older people’s wellbeing by intervening in those factors that enhance/undermine their capabilities. This entails a more flexible, multidimensional and more supportive approach to old-age policy, without imposing a priori importance on certain policy domains and without an exclusive focus on individual responsibility. European Union policy on active ageing Although we can establish the European Year of Older People, in 1993, as the first milestone in the emergence of a specific EU policy on AA (due to the emphasis that was put on the theme of older people’s active participation in society), we had to wait almost 20  years to see the definitive institutionalisation of this policy with the celebration, in 2012, of the European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations. In the context of this year, the Social Protection Committee and the Employment Committee established the Guiding Principles for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations, which are included in the annex of the Council Declaration (Council of the European

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Union, 2012). From the analysis of these guiding principles, four main ideas stand out: a) AA is synonymous with the participation of older people in several domains of life, with a distinct emphasis on labour market participation; b) the promotion of AA requires policy measures in three main areas, including employment, participation in society (such as volunteering), and independent living; c)  independent living is a necessary precondition to economic and social participation; d) the ultimate goal of AA policy is unclear, as in most parts of the Council Declaration it is stated that the aim of AA policy is to enhance the contribution of older people to the economy and society (AA defined as a set of expectations), while in some (but few) parts it is mentioned that the aim of the AA policy is to optimise ‘opportunities for physical, social and mental well-being throughout the life course’ (p 7) (AA defined as a set of opportunities). The tensions within AA as a set of expectations on the one hand, and as an opportunity structure on the other hand, are evident. For instance, an older person might be expected to live independently in a house that has become inaccessible to him/her (such as an apartment on top floor with no lift) yet not be able to do so due to lack of opportunity to move to a more accessible flat. Another decisive milestone in the consolidation of the EU policy on AA was the development of the Active Ageing Index (AAI), launched in 2012 as an outcome of the European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations. In the documentation of the AAI we find the following definition: ‘Active ageing refers to the situation where people continue to participate in the formal labour market as well as engage in other unpaid productive activities (such as care provision to family members and volunteering) and live healthy, independent and secure lives as they age’ (Zaidi et al, 2013: 6). Zaidi and Howse (2017: 3–4) clarify that: The AAI is not a measure of wellbeing in later life, nor should we assume that policies to promote active aging will

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invariably promote individual wellbeing or a better quality of life for older people. It purports rather to measure the actual and potential contribution that the older population make to societal welfare, and there are undoubtedly social conditions in which high levels of contribution will be correlated with low welfare, for example, continuing to work in spite of ill-health because of the limitations of the public pension system. (Zaidi and Howse, 2017: 3–4) The AAI operationalises AA in four distinct domains and 22 indicators (Zaidi et  al, 2013): a) employment (employment rates for the age groups 55–59, 60–64, 65–69 and 70–74); b) participation in society (voluntary activities; care to children and grandchildren; care to older adults; political participation); c) independent, healthy and secure living (physical exercise; access to health and dental care; independent living arrangements; financial security; physical safety; lifelong learning); d) capacity and enabling environment for active and healthy ageing (remaining life expectancy achievement at age 55; share of healthy life years in the remaining life expectancy at age 55; mental wellbeing; use of ICT by older persons aged 55–74 at least once a week, including every day; social connectedness; educational attainment of older persons). Employment and participation in society are the domains with the highest weights in the calculation of the overall aggregated index. An Expert Group selected these domains and indicators, and assigned the respective weights, without extensive and representative consultation of older people themselves. For a critical analysis of the AAI, please see São José et al (2017a). Policy and theoretical underpinnings

While AA has become the dominant framework to address the challenges of population ageing, the critics and promoters of the AA discourse do not agree on the policy paradigms that

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shape the European AA policy. Critics argue that the European AA policy is shaped by the neoliberal paradigm. Promoters, in turn, contend that this policy is shaped by the social investment paradigm. Although the promoters of the AA discourse do not recognise its alignment with neoliberalism, several scholars have no doubt that this alignment exists (for example, Rudman, 2015; O’Brien, 2017). For example, Rudman (2015: 11) argues that positive ageing discourses, including the AA and successful ageing discourses, ‘have intersected with neoliberal rationality such that responsibilities for the management of bodily, financial and social risks of aging have increasingly been shifted from states and other institutions to individuals’. In this respect, Asquith (2009: 267) claims that ‘there is a need for critical research that begins from the perspective of older people and how they construct the meaning of ageing well, rather than the responsibilization discourses generated by government agencies concerned with public spending’. In a similar line of thought, Rubinstein and Medeiros (2015) contend that it is unrealistic to make successful ageing dependent on individual action when many older people do not have access to the necessary collective resources to age actively/successfully. In turn, the promoters of the AAI recognise that AA policy intersects with the social investment paradigm, an emergent policy paradigm in Europe, which has the main goal of increasing employability over the life course, neglecting other social policy domains (Hemerijck, 2018; see Chapter Two, this volume). This recognition is made explicit in the AAI webpage and in the Active Ageing Index 2014: Analytical Report. According to this report, ‘The concept of active ageing emphasizes the scope for social investment to bring about more participation in employment and society and a greater capacity to live independently in old age’ (UNECE and EC, 2015: 9). Other authors, such as Kvist (2014: 11) underline that ‘“Active ageing” has become the catch phrase for social investment type policies for elderly’.

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Moving on to the theoretical underpinnings of the EU policy on AA, several authors (for example, Walker, 2002; O’Brien, 2017) suggest that the AA discourse resonates with Activity Theory developed by Havighurst (1957). This theory has two main propositions. First, as people grow old, they replace some social roles with others in order to remain active. Second, the more active older people are, the more satisfied they will be with life. Critics of this theory (for example, Walker, 2002) have called our attention to the fact that activity is not valued by all, and when it is, it is not with the same intensity and in the same way. They have also emphasised that social structures (for example, gender and social class) that constrain social action are neglected by this theory. Limitations of active ageing

The advocates of AA argue that it corresponds to a win–win strategy, in which productive activity entails benefits not only for individual wellbeing but also for the sustainability of societies, especially their economic sustainability. However, Walker (2002; 2009) is convinced that the potentialities of the EU policy on AA will only materialise if the EU fully embraces a comprehensive strategy on AA, something that has not been done so far. Inspired by the WHO (2002) definition of AA, Walker (2002; 2009) proposed seven key principles for developing such a strategy: a) the word ‘activity’ should include all activities that contribute to individual wellbeing and not only paid employment; b) AA should be a preventative concept, involving all age groups and a life-course perspective; c) AA should be focused on all older people, including those who are unemployed, frail and dependent; d) intergenerational solidarity and fairness between generations should be key features of AA; e) AA should include both rights (for example, rights to social protection and lifelong education) and obligations (for example, taking advantage of education opportunities); f) AA

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should encompass both top-down and bottom-up approaches; g) AA should respect differences between member states, as well as diversity within each member state, paying attention to structural factors (for example, social, economic and cultural) that shape older people’s lives. Later, Foster and Walker (2015: 88) added an eighth principle stating that: a comprehensive strategy on AA should be flexible, that is, it ‘must contend with individual aging throughout the life course and changing notions of what active aging means to different people and the resources required to age well’, and recognise the role played by social structures, such as social class, gender, ethnicity and age in the process of ageing. In our view, most of the principles proposed by Walker (2002; 2009) and Foster and Walker (2015) should be taken into account in developing public policies concerned with (active) ageing. Nevertheless, we identify three main flaws in these principles. First, they do not go beyond the idea of ‘active ageing’ that, in our view, is inherently exclusionary for the reasons already described. Second, they do not clarify whether the ultimate goal of AA policy is to enhance older people’s participation and independency or to enhance older people’s wellbeing. Third, the fifth principle is somehow coercive, as it refers to the older people’s ‘obligation’ to take advantage of existing opportunities. We argue that EU policy on AA is not comprehensive, as it exhibits six main limitations. First, although the EU’s understanding on AA also includes the condition of being independent and autonomous, there is an emphasis on economic and social participation. This means that the main policy value is ‘activity’, which is consistent with the Activity Theory. The adjective ‘active’ indicates the desired quality of the noun ‘ageing’, excluding automatically other adjectives, such as ‘passive’. The problem is that not everyone wants, or is able, to meet the requirements of ‘being active’ (São José et al, 2017a). This means that the buzzword ‘active ageing’ is inherently exclusionary and even ageist in the sense that, on the one hand,

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it exalts lifestyles typical of the middle age that are unrealistic to many older people and, on the other hand, denies vulnerability and frailty (Foster and Walker, 2015; Lamb et al, 2017). Second, the primary goal of EU policy on AA is unclear, although we find a dominant trend towards enhancing the contribution of older people to the economy and society, in line with the purpose of the AAI in measuring the untapped potential of older people to be active (and healthy). In this vein, EU policy on AA tends to adopt an instrumental approach, in the sense that older people’s economic and social participation is a necessary mean to achieve the fiscal sustainability of European societies. This means, in accordance with the Theory of Model Ageing developed by Timonen (2016), that the AA policy draws, paradoxically, ‘the solution’ for challenges of population ageing (exhorting older people to contribute to the economy and society) from ‘the problem’ (older persons themselves, who are perceived as the source of the problem). For instance, the growing need for care services (‘the problem’) is expected to be met, to an increasing extent, through older persons’ self-care, services they buy for themselves, and through their efforts to look after family members even when they develop care needs themselves. Third, although there is some ambivalence regarding the definition of AA in EU policy documents, the AAI, which operationalises the concept of AA, clarifies what is included in this concept. In doing so, the AAI establishes a model of AA, and all the measures implemented to increase the position of a member state in this index end up reproducing such a model (Timonen, 2016). In addition, the model of AA conveyed by the AAI is composed exclusively by outcomes (for example, being employed, undertaking physical exercise and providing care), leaving out other important aspects, such as the real opportunities to achieve these outcomes (see Chapter One, this volume). Fourth, the outcomes measured by the AAI represent a narrow model of AA, given that it suffers from a ‘productivist’ bias

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(Foster and Walker, 2015), that is, from an excessive emphasis on activities that are economically and socially productive, in line with the social investment paradigm which attributes great importance to paid work and employability. This productivist bias may imply an undervaluation of other relevant dimensions for older people, such as leisure and inter-personal relationships (Huijg et  al, 2017; São José, 2016), and even introspection and lethargy (São José, 2016). Furthermore, it may turn many older people who do not want, or are not able, to embrace productive activities into secondary targets of public policies. Still, in relation to the model of AA conveyed by the AAI, it is important to emphasise that it is ‘expert-based and ingrained with a priori assumptions about the potential of European older people, the domains of life and activities they value, and how strongly they value these domains and activities’ (São José et al, 2017a: 54). This ‘one size fits all’ model of AA runs the risk of having a fragile correspondence with reality, as older people’s perspectives on ageing well may not fit with the proposed model. Fifth, in line with neoliberalism, EU policy on AA conceives the condition of ‘being active’ primarily as an individual responsibility, downplaying the role of collective/public responsibility. It is well known, however, that the opportunities for participation in the economy and society are greatly dependent on collective/public resources, such as public transport and healthcare services. Lastly, EU policy on AA overlooks the role of social structures and social inequalities – based, inter alia, on gender, social class, ethnicity and age – in the endeavour of being active. Riley (1998: 151) claimed that the developers of the successful ageing model neglected an important aspect: ‘(the) dependence of successful aging upon structural opportunities in schools, offices, nursing homes, families, communities, social networks, and society at large’. We argue that the same can be said about AA. In the following section we discuss how CA can overcome the limitations of the EU policy on AA.

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Overcoming the limitations of European policy on active ageing: the contribution of the capability approach We argue that an alternative policy framework to ageing and later life which overcomes the main limitations of the EU policy on AA is needed. In this regard, it is our view that the CA, initially developed by Amartya Sen (1980; 1985), can prove effective to this end. The CA is concerned with what people are really able to do and be (their capabilities) and with what they are actually doing and being (their functionings) (Robeyns, 2017). In the light of the CA, social policies can be conceived not only as resources (means) but also as conversion factors (see Chapter One, this volume). In this chapter we conceive the EU policy of AA as being primarily a resource (means) that older people can make use to achieve better lives. Table  3.1 summarises the main limitations of the EU policy on AA discussed in the previous section and the features of the CA that make it possible to overcome each limitation. With respect to the first limitation of the EU policy on AA – activity as the main policy value – the CA offers alternative public values, such as wellbeing (Robeyns, 2017). The Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, written by Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi (2009), is clear about the need for governments to move from measuring production to measuring wellbeing of current and future generations in order to promote social progress. We agree with this claim and believe that the CA is a useful framework to address wellbeing from a policy perspective. This is well demonstrated by Alkire (2015), who explains the advantages of measuring wellbeing in the space of capabilities, rather than in the space of resources (for example, income) or utility (for example, happiness). She states that the ‘capability approach conceives of measured wellbeing as the freedom people have to enjoy valuable activities and states’ (Alkire, 2015: 3). In other words, Alkire (2015) clarifies that from the CA point of view,

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Table 3.1: Main limitations of the EU policy on AA and features of the CA that can overcome these limitations Main limitations of the EU policy on AA

Features of the CA that overcome the limitations

Activity as the main policy value

Wellbeing as an alternative value

Enhancing older people’s economic and social participation as the primary policy goal

Enhancing people’s wellbeing as an alternative policy goal

Outcomes (functionings) as the exclusive policy focus

Capabilities and functionings as the central elements in policy formulation/evaluation

Narrow and expert-based model of AA

Multidimensional and bottom-up approach

AA as a primarily individual responsibility

Capabilities and functionings as both an individual and collective/public responsibility

Social structures and inequalities are neglected

Structural constraints, resources (means) and conversion factors are important determinants of the individual’s capability set

wellbeing is dependent on the real opportunities (capabilities) people have to achieve valuable doings and beings (valued and achieved functionings; see Chapter One, this volume). The second limitation – enhancing older people’s economic and social participation as the primary policy goal – is related to the first one and the CA proposes an alternative policy goal, namely enhancing people’s wellbeing. As already clarified, this is achieved through expanding people’s capabilities to do what they value and be the persons they want to be. At the level of policy and practices, this could translate, for instance, into giving more options for older workers to ‘downshift’ to part-time work, to take on different roles such as being a mentor in the work place, as well as to exit work.

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Regarding the third limitation – outcomes (functionings) as the exclusive policy focus – the CA contends that wellbeing and other public values (for example, justice) should be conceptualised not only in terms of achieved outcomes (functionings) but also in terms of capabilities (Robeyns, 2017). Sen (2009) rejects an approach based exclusively on functionings, because such an approach does not clarify whether a certain functioning (for example, not taking exercise) reflects a choice or a lack of alternatives (no facilities in the community to exercise). This implies that from the point of view of public policy it is important to know not only what people do, but also if they are able (or not) to achieve what they value to do and be. As O’Brien (2017: 11) states, ‘effective active ageing policies are not possible without a rich and complex understanding of what (older) people are able to do and be, how they function, and the freedom they have to age actively’. The CA is also an inspiring source to overcome the fourth limitation, that is, the narrow and expert-based model of AA. One of the features of the CA is its multidimensionality, and capability scholars agree that looking at a restricted set of dimensions makes no sense in any empirical, conceptual or policy exercise for two main reasons (Robeyns, 2017). First, using a restricted set of dimensions does not account for the entire diversity and complexity of human lives. Second, using a restricted set of dimensions comes close to certain measures of wellbeing that focus only on one dimension, such as the happiness approach. Moreover, the CA (as proposed by Sen) does not impose any set of dimensions defined by an expert group. In fact, the concepts of functionings and capabilities are inherently anti-paternalistic, as both refer to beings and doings that people value and have reason to value. Furthermore, in the applications of the CA, the selection of dimensions and corresponding weights (if applicable) relies on bottomup approaches (participatory or deliberative approaches), in which relevant populations participate (Robeyns, 2017;

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Alkire, 2015). On the choice of dimension weights, Sen (1999: 78–79) recommends a ‘social choice exercise’, implying ‘public discussion and a democratic understanding and acceptance’. In practice, this would call for more democratic and systematic use of mechanisms to tap into older adults’ views in decision-making, such as older persons’ councils that have been introduced in many Nordic local authorities. In relation to the fifth limitation – AA as a primarily individual responsibility – the CA suggests that although the achieved functionings are, in ultimate instance, a result of individuals’ agency, the capability set (opportunity set of achievable functionings) is dependent on structural constraints (for example, political regime, economic system) and social conversion factors (for example, social values and norms) (Robeyns, 2017). These constraints and factors are not under the control of individuals, but rather (most of them) depend on collective/public action. Regarding the last limitation of the EU policy on AA – the neglect of social structures and inequalities – the CA draws attention to the constraints and possibilities that social structures place on individuals (although it is criticised for having an individualistic nature). On the one hand, the concern of the CA with social structures is evident in the importance that it attributes to conversion factors, that is, to the ability to convert resources/commodities, such as income, statutory entitlements and public services into functionings (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017; Kurowska, 2018). Among these conversion factors are social factors (for example, social norms) and environmental factors (for example, built environment), both external to individuals (Robeyns, 2017). On the other hand, the concern of the CA with social structures is evident in the recognition that each person’s set of conversion factors and each person’s capability set is shaped by structural constraints produced, inter alia, by institutional systems, such as economic and political systems (Robeyns, 2017). The concern of the CA with social structures is also reflected in the proposition that agency, that

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is, the act of choice from the opportunity set of achievable functionings, is shaped by social structures (Robeyns, 2017). For example, an older person’s options to move to more suitable housing (for example, when mobility issues make living in a two-storey house impossible) are heavily contoured by the availability of accessible and affordable housing. Having discussed the potential contribution of the CA to overcome the limitations of the EU policy on AA, we would like now to outline a capability framework for policy and practice on ageing and later life. A capability framework for policy and practice on ageing and later life The principles that follow are based on the CA, and form the foundation of the capability framework for policy and practice on ageing and later life that we propose. First, wellbeing must be the main policy and practice value and enhancing older people’s wellbeing and quality of life must be the primary policy and practice goal. Public policy and practice should not conceive engaging in paid work, lifelong learning and other activities as an end in itself, but rather as means to achieve wellbeing and quality of life, widely accepted as being the main purpose of any public policy (Howlett and Cashore, 2014). Second, policy and practice must look not only at outcomes (functionings) but also at opportunities and freedom to achieve the functionings that older people most value and have reason to value. Not looking at older people’s capabilities equates with not looking at opportunity structures that shape individual agency. For example, an older person may value regularly going for walks, but if the surroundings are not suitable or safe for pedestrians, she will not be able to actualise this desired functioning. Third, the selection of the functionings and respective capabilities that will be the targets of policy and practice must be carried out through participatory and inclusive processes. These may include focus groups and roundtable workshops,

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in which diverse groups of older people participate actively. Fourth, policy and practice should not impose a model of ageing or of being on an older person, but rather create the necessary conditions so that older people can do what they value and be the people they aspire to be. Fifth, considering that older people’s wellbeing depends greatly on the availability of collective/public resources and supports, enhancing older people’s wellbeing must be assumed not only as an individual responsibility but also as a collective/ public responsibility. Sixth, policy and practice must pay due attention to the structural constraints, resources (means) and conversion factors that shape the older people’s capabilities and functionings, and ultimately their levels of wellbeing. For example, in the case of an older person who values teaching a foreign language on a voluntary basis, having foreign languages skills (a resource) will have a limited role in enabling this functioning if there is no legal framework for voluntary work (structural constraints), and if there is ageism against older people in the community (social conversion factors). Seventh, policy and practice must promote equality of capabilities by tackling inequalities rooted in structural constraints (for example, in labour market policies that discriminate older workers), older people’s resources/means (for example, in income) and conversion factors (for example, in age-based social expectations). However, in the cases in which the ability to make complex choices is compromised by advanced dementia or other health conditions, focus should be on promoting functionings rather than capabilities. Eighth, policy and practice must adopt a life-course approach in the endeavour of promoting older people’s wellbeing, especially in the sense of looking not only at later life but also at the previous stages of life and their cumulative effects in later life. Among these principles, we would like to put a special emphasis on the seventh one. Social inequalities that affect older people are serious barriers to promoting equality of capabilities,

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because they undermine the freedom to choose between different lifestyles. One important source of inequalities that affect older people is ageism that puts older people, especially those with scarce resources, in a disadvantaged position in several domains of life, such as health and long-term care, paid work, education and training (Ayalon, 2014; São José et al, 2017b). The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals draw attention to certain dynamics that particularly affect older people and that put them at risk of social exclusion, such as poverty, inaccessible and unaffordable public transport, and unsafe and inaccessible green and public spaces. Combating social inequalities and social exclusion throughout the life course is therefore, in our view, an essential prerequisite for achieving the ideal of equality of capabilities in later life. Concluding thoughts Lamb and co-authors (2017: 1) argue that ‘the contemporary paradigm of successful aging is not the only way, nor necessarily the best, most humane, or most inspirational way, to imagine aging and what it means to be human’. In our view, the same can be said regarding AA, which is a prescriptive and restrictive paradigm that in many ways serves to deepen existing inequalities in older populations. As a resource (mean), the EU policy on AA offers older people a limited number of options and a low guarantee of equal opportunities to achieve the lifestyles they have reason to value. In this chapter we have proposed the adoption of a new framework for policy and practice across the entire range of age-related social policies, from education to retirement, from care to recreation. This new framework, based on the CA, moves beyond the dominant expert-based discourse of AA focused on activity (mainly economic and social activity), and offers a different discourse or ‘normative reference point’ (see Chapter One, this volume) focused on older people’s capabilities

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to achieve the doings and beings they value. More than being concerned with enhancing older people’s functionings, policy and professional practice should be concerned with enhancing their capabilities by intervening in those factors that shape them, such as structural constraints, older people’s resources and conversion factors. As a first step, policymakers and practitioners need to acknowledge that they currently have limited understanding of what the increasingly diverse older population values, and how older adults understand ‘good old age’. The CA therefore calls for comprehensive efforts to map out older adults’ preferences and needs, instead of the current policy approaches that are largely driven by the needs and concerns of policymakers and professionals. Fundamentally, the CA calls for a radical re-think of how we approach old age and older people: not as targets of policies that seek to control the ‘burden’ of population ageing, but rather as agents that have a diversity of preferences, and varying capabilities. The challenge that this presents for policymaking in ageing societies is profound: a move towards both a more permissive/flexible, multidimensional and supportive approach to old age-policy that opens the door to possibilities and alternatives that are currently perhaps unthinkable. References Alkire, S (2015) ‘Capability approach and well-being measurement for public policy’, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative Working Paper 94, Oxford: Oxford University. Asquith, NL (2009) ‘Positive ageing, neoliberalism and Australian sociology’, Journal of Sociology 45(3), 255–269, doi: 10.1177/1440783309335650. Ayalon, L (2014) ‘Perceived age, gender, and racial/ethnic discrimination in Europe: Results from the European social survey’, Educational Gerontology 40, 499–517, doi: 10.1080/03601277.2013.845490.

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Commission of the European Communities (1999) Towards a Europe for All Ages. Promoting Prosperity and Intergenerational Solidarity, Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, com (1999) 221 final. Council of the European Union (2010) Council Conclusions on Active Ageing, Brussels: Council of the European Union. Council of the European Union (2012) Council Declaration on the European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations (2012): The Way Forward, Brussels: Council of the European Union, SOC 992, SAN 322. Foster, L and Walker, A (2015) ‘Active and successful aging: A European policy perspective’, The Gerontologist 55(1), 83–90. Havighurst, R (1957) ‘The leisure activities of the middle-aged’, American Journal of Sociology 63, 152–162. Hemerijck, A (2018) ‘Social investment as a policy paradigm’, Jour nal of European Public Policy 25(6), 810–827, doi: 10.1080/13501763.2017.1401111. Howlett, M and Cashore, B (2014) ‘Conceptualizing public policy’, In I Engeli and CR Allison (eds) Comparative Policy Studies, Research Methods Series, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 17–34. Huijg, J, van Delden, A, van der Ouderaa, F, Westendorp, R, Slaets, J and Lindenberg, J (2017) ‘Being active, engaged, and healthy: Older persons’ plans and wishes to age successfully’, Journals of Gerontology: Psychological and Social Sciences 72(2), 228–236, doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbw107. Javornik, J and Kurowska, A (2017) ‘Parental leave as real opportunity structure for families and the source of gender and class inequalities’, Social Policy & Administration 51(4): 617–637. Kurowska, A (2018)’ (De)familialization and (de)genderization: Competing or complementary perspectives in comparative policy analysis?’, Social Policy and Administration 52(1): 29–49. Kvist, J (2014) ‘A framework for social investment strategies: Integrating generational, life course and gender perspectives in the EU social investment strategy’, Comparative European Politics 13(1), 131–149.

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Lamb, S, Robbins-Ruszkowski, J and Corwin, A (2017) ‘Introduction’, in S Lamb (ed) Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp 1–23. O’Brien, E (2017) ‘Planning for population ageing: The rhetoric of “active ageing” – theoretical shortfalls, policy limits, practical constraints and the crucial requirement for societal interventions’, International Planning Studies doi: 10.1080/13563475.2017.1318702. Riley, MW (1998) Letter to the editor, The Gerontologist 38, 151, doi:10.1093/geront/38.2.151. Robeyns, I (2017) Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. Rubinstein, RL and Medeiros, K (2015) ‘Successful aging’, gerontological theory and neoliberalism: A qualitative critique, The Gerontologist 55(1), 34–42, doi:10.1093/geront/gnu080. Rudman, DL (2015) ‘Embodying positive aging and neoliberal rationality: Talking about the aging body within narratives of retirement’, Journal of Aging Studies 34, 10–20. São José, J (2016) ‘Preserving dignity in later life’, Canadian Journal on Aging/La Revue canadienne du vieillissement 35(3), 332–347. São José, J and Teixeira, A (2014) ‘Envelhecimento ativo: Contributo para uma discussão crítica’, Análise Social 210(49 (1)), 28–54. São José, J, Timonen, V, Amado, C and Santos, S (2017a) ‘A critique of the Active Ageing Index’, Journal of Aging Studies 40, 49–56, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2017.01.001 São José, J, Amado, C, Ilinca, S, Buttigieg, S and Taghizadeh Larsson, A (2017b) ‘Ageism in health care: A systematic review of operational definitions and inductive conceptualizations’, The Gerontologist, gnx020, https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnx020. Sen, A (1980) ‘Equality of what?’, in S McMurrin (ed) The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, pp 196–220. Sen, A (1985) Commodities and Capabilities, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sen, A (1999) Development as Freedom, New York: Knopf Press. Sen, AK (2009) The Idea of Justice, London: Penguin.

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Stiglitz, J, Sen, A and Fitoussi, J-P (2009) Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, Paris: Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE). Timonen, V (2016) Beyond Successful and Active Ageing: A Theory of Model Ageing, Bristol: Policy Press. UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) and (EC) European Commission (2015) Active Ageing Index 2014: Analytical Report, Report prepared by Asghar Zaidi of Centre for Research on Ageing, University of Southampton and David Stanton, under contract with United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (Geneva), co-funded by European Commission’s Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Brussels: UNECE and EC. Walker, A (2002) ‘A strategy for active ageing’, International Social Security Review 55, 121–139, doi: 10.1111/1468-246X.00118. Walker, A (2009) ‘The emergence and application of active ageing in Europe’, Journal of Aging and Social Policy 21, 75–93, doi: 10.1080/08959420802529986. WHO (World Health Organisation) (2002) Active Ageing: A Policy Framework, Geneva: WHO. Zaidi, A and Howse, K (2017) ‘The policy discourse of active ageing: Some reflections’, Population Ageing 10(1), 1–10, https://doi. org/10.1007/s12062-017-9174-6. Zaidi, A, Gasior, K, Hofmarcher, MM, Lelkes, O, Marin, B, Rodrigues, R, et  al (2013) Active Ageing Index 2012: Concept, Methodology and Final Results, Vienna: European Centre. Zaidi, A, Gasior, K, Zolyomi, E, Schmidt, A, Rodrigues, R and Marin, B (2017) ‘Measuring active and healthy ageing in Europe’, Journal of European Social Policy 27(2), 138–157, https://doi. org/10.1177/0958928716676550.

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FOUR Converting shared parental leave into shared parenting: the role of employers and use of litigation by employees in the UK

Jana Javornik and Liz Oliver

Introduction Fathers need to have the space to think about what kind of a dad they want to be. Not all fathers will need or want to work flexibly or take shared parental leave, but many will. It’s important that the families talk about their vision together and do what works for them. And whatever they decide, the options and choices need to be available for them in the workplace, that’s the key. (Elliott Rae)1 Gender inequality in paid work and care has been a persistent social problem in the UK, despite the adoption of gender

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equality policies since the 1970s. In this one-and-a-half earner model, women leave the labour market or work part-time after childbirth and take on higher parenting and care responsibilities than men (Lewis, 2009). To challenge traditional gender division of labour and to remove historic workplace inequality between women and men, the UK government introduced Shared Parental Leave (SPL) in 2014 (with effect from April 2015). Its intrinsic aim was to expand parents’ capabilities to share parenting, by affording fathers similar entitlements to post-birth leave as mothers. Policy sought to simultaneously address other sources of gender inequality such as attitudes among men and women which make women the primary parent, responsible for family (Robeyns, 2006). This would expand parents’ capability sets to remain in work after childbirth and to share parenting differently. Such social policy developments are prima facie positive and represent a major step forward in addressing gender inequality at home and at work. However, the UK’s SPL policy has not produced the desired change in fathers’ leave uptake and the implementation has exposed several issues. While the literature on the SPL is booming, it is still far from clear what its implications are. Earlier studies suggest that the failure of this new policy is an inevitable outcome of the low statutory pay attached to it (Javornik and Oliver, 2015; Baird and O’Brien, 2015; Mitchell, 2015; Atkinson, 2017). The UK’s (and Ireland’s) statutory maternity pay offers the lowest replacement rates in the OECD, of around one third of gross average earnings (OECD, 2017) and Shared Parental Pay (SPP) adopts the same basic rate. We argue that research has overlooked the complexity of the UK’s social policy landscape, in which employers can topup government payments by offering extra-statutory (enhanced) benefits (for example, sickness, maternity, paternity and SPP) through their contractual terms. These are at the discretion of the employers; while many offer them to mothers, very few offer them to fathers (Javornik and Oliver, 2015; Koslowski and Kadar-Satat, 2018). Thus, fathers are not really afforded

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enhanced pay and, as we argue in this chapter, are missing out on a potential conversion factor to draw on the resource of SPL to achieve their preferred parenting arrangement.2 Drawing on Robeyns (2006), we argue that legal rights are one possible instrument for reaching that goal and can be effective in some cases and contexts. Namely, policy on parental leave intertwines different but intersecting social policy domains, including family, employment and gender equality, child wellbeing and demography (Kamerman and Moss, 2011). That means that both SPL rights and capabilities (opportunities) depend on multidimensional and comprehensive social systems, and are, as such, vulnerable to specific contexts associated with these separate policy domains. To include a wider legal and labour market landscape as a potentially relevant source of inequalities in parents’ opportunity sets to share parenting through SPL, we apply the capability approach (CA) to deal with some of the shortcomings of rights (see Chapter One). Combining social science and legal scholarship, the CA’s comprehensiveness and interdisciplinary character (Robeyns, 2006: 79) is particularly apt for our analysis. Testing out several frameworks, we found many theories too restricted on disciplinary grounds. The scope of the CA, by contrast, is as wide as the societal arrangements that this policy regulates. Furthermore, using the CA, it is important to evaluate policy’s effect on all capabilities (opportunity sets) of parents, and the CA helps to provide a contextualised account of the complex interplay between SPL and the legal environment (Busby, 2011). This legal environment can be crucial particularly from the perspective of access to justice (Hastie, 2017: 25): ‘The capabilities approach is concerned both with asking about what legal rights individuals have (and what capabilities they both reflect and facilitate), as well as what practical access or opportunity individuals have to use those rights to achieve valuable functionings.’ Legal rights can be viewed either as (1) capability in themselves, allowing us to go beyond an analysis of the existence of legal

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rights to explore their efficacy in practice; or (2)  ‘necessary pieces of the bundle of resources, goods, rights and opportunities that create capabilities’ (Hastie, 2017: 27). In this chapter, we combine the CA analysis of SPL policy design (Bacchi, 2009; Javornik, 2014; Mackay, 2014) and emergent case law (McKinley and Allen, 2015). We use the CA as an analytical perspective from which we examine (1)  how the SPL scheme shapes a father’s capability set to co-parent; and (2)  how the broader regime of employment and anti-discrimination law addresses gender equality in home and at work. Our analysis offers a more comprehensive explanation for the failure of SPL to enhance parents’ capability (opportunity sets) to share parenting in ways which they as a couple have reason to value (while remaining in work), as well as an example of how to incorporate a multilevel interdisciplinary analysis of legal rights into social policy analysis through a capability lens. In what follows, we refer to the use of paternity leave (PL) and SPL by fathers and the use of maternity leave (ML) and SPL by birth mothers. In doing so, we are invoking a set of (heteronormative) assumptions about how families are made up and function. Here, we focus on the broad policy goal of encouraging men to take on more caring responsibility to promote gender equality for women. This places the emphasis on heterosexual men. We recognise that PL, SPL and adoption leave (AL) are open to any person who has parental responsibility for a child and that this includes not only heterosexual fathers and not only men. We found ways in which the policy shapes the capability of same-sex and lone parents to achieve the valued functioning of parenting; we also found differences between the policy regime for adoptive parents and birth parents. However, the focus here is principally on heterosexual fathers and birth mothers and our underlying assumption is that these actors will be taking parental responsibility for a newborn. This creates a stylised view of parenting and one that does not reflect reality for many but, aiming to explore the scope for changes in the parenting practices

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of heterosexual men, we recognise that such a narrow frame excludes a wider and more diverse range of parenting practices. Legal landscape for achieving shared parenting The creation of ‘family-friendly’ policy has been on the UK political agenda since the late 1990s (McColgan, 2000: 125). Shortly before losing power, the 1997–2010 Labour government articulated a vision for challenging gendered care and boosting female employment, starting by extending PL by converting any ‘leftover’ ML and pay to fathers, with effect from 2011 (Kaufman, 2018). The subsequent Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government redesigned the policy based on a similar mechanism but with more flexibility (and publicity) when they introduced SPL. The SPL scheme was established through the Children and Families Act 2014 and Shared Parental Leave Regulations 2014 and opened up to parents with children born or adopted since April 2015. Table  4.1 presents basic features of the different types of statutory entitlements available to mothers and fathers (no information is available on extra-statutory benefits). We can see that in this incredibly complex policy portfolio, parents are afforded six different types of leave, of which three are paid. In addition to paid annual leave (not included), working fathers have a two-week paternity leave, paid at a much lower rate than father’s usual earnings, and can access some of the ‘maternity leave’ via additional paternity leave (2011–2015) and via shared parental leave as the new entitlement since 2015. Adoption leave mirrors the maternity and parental leave framework. It allows the primary parent to access leave akin to ML and the secondary parent a short period of leave akin to PL. SPL is available to both adoptive parents. In addition, both unpaid parental leave and unpaid time off to deal with emergencies remain in place. Before we analyse this further, it is useful to note that SPL does not create a stand-alone entitlement for fathers akin to ML.

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Table 4.1: Basic features of the work–family portfolio with the changes made by the 2014 CFAct*, UK 2015–present

Statutory maternity leave (ML)

Entitlement: 52 weeks: 26 of ordinary + 26 of additional leave including compulsory two weeks following the birth. No length of service requirement.

Remains in place.

Statutory maternity pay (SMP)

Remains in place. For employees, entails a length of service requirement (26 weeks). Entitlement: 39 weeks of statutory pay. First six weeks paid at 90% of employee’s average weekly earnings; subsequent 33 weeks paid at flat-rate (at the time of writing whichever is the lower of £145.18 per week or 90% of normal weekly earnings). The remaining 13 weeks are unpaid.

Statutory paternity leave (PL)

Remains in place. Eligibility is based on parental responsibility and can cover the father of the child, a (male or female) spouse, or a partner or civil partner of the mother. The right is for employees and subject to a qualifying period of 26 weeks’ service. Entitlement: Up to two weeks of leave.

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Before 2014 CFAct

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Type of Leave

(continued)

Table 4.1: Basic features of the work–family portfolio with the changes made by the 2014 CFAct*, UK (continued)

Remains in place. For employees, entails a length of service requirement (26 weeks). Two weeks at flat-rate payment (at the time of writing whichever is the lower of £145.18 per week or 90% of normal weekly earnings).

2015–present

Additional paternity leave (APL)

2011–2015, possibility for mothers to transfer part of maternity leave (up to 26 weeks) to the person taking paternity leave but only from 20 weeks after the birth of the child.

Abolished from 5 April 2015.

Additional statutory paternity pay (ASPP)

Any remaining SMP becomes available as ASPP. For employees with a continuous period of at least 26 weeks.

Abolished from 5 April 2015.

Shared Parental Leave (SPL)

No provision.

Up to 50 weeks of leave can be shared between eligible parents within the first year of a child’s life. SPL is by default maternity leave – qualifying mothers can end ML after two weeks and switch to SPL. A co-parent’s right to paternity leave remains in place but is lost once s/he takes SPL. (continued)

Converting shared parental leave into shared parenting

Before 2014 CFAct

Statutory paternity pay

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Type of Leave

Table 4.1: Basic features of the work–family portfolio with the changes made by the 2014 CFAct*, UK (continued) Type of Leave

Before 2014 CFAct

2015–present

Shared Parental Leave (SPL) (contd.)

No provision.

Flexibility in ways leave is taken up (concurrently or consecutively, including as intermittent blocks of no less than one week).

Shared parental pay (SPP)

No provision.

Up to 37 weeks of leave attract pay (depending on how much of SMP has been used up). Leave paid at the flat rate (at the time of writing whichever is the lower of £145.18 per week or 90% of normal weekly earnings). Final 13 weeks unpaid. Complicated ‘twinned’ qualification criteria, key aspects include: a birth mother must have been in employment with an employer for a continuous period of at least 26 weeks. The mother must have curtailed her SMP. The co-parent must meet the ‘employment and earnings test’ (mentioned earlier). (continued)

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Complicated ‘twinned’ qualification criteria, key aspects include employees with a length of service of 26 weeks, the co-parent must meet an ‘employment and earnings test’ (worked for 26 weeks out of the 66 weeks before the expected week of childbirth and have earned at least GBP30 per week for 13 weeks – min GBP390 in total).

Table 4.1: Basic features of the work–family portfolio with the changes made by the 2014 CFAct*, UK (continued) Before 2014 CFAct

2015–present

Parental Leave

18 weeks unpaid leave per parent, per child (born or adopted). Available to employees, can be taken up to the child’s 18th birthday, in blocks of a week or multiples of a week, unless the employer agrees otherwise or the child is disabled. Max four weeks per year.

Remains in place (unpaid).

Time off for dependents

Employees have a right to a ‘reasonable amount’ of unpaid time off to respond to a specified list of emergency situations. No specified limit on the amount of time.

Remains in place (unpaid).

Source: Authors’ compilation based on the relevant statutory provisions and ACAS, available at www.acas.org.uk/

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Type of Leave

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Post-birth leave is, by default, offered as ML, with SPL opening up the opportunity to the mother to share her leave with her partner. To trigger SPL, the mother must curtail her ML and pay and switch to SPL/SPP. The entitlement to SPP is addressed separately to entitlement to leave and includes both separate criteria and slightly different definitions, which makes the UK policy similar to the Australian model (Martin et al, 2014). A capability approach to shared parental leave In this section we shift analysis to SPP as a ‘means’ for parents to achieve valued functionings of sharing parenting in ways they have reason to value (while remaining at work). As noted earlier, SPL and SPP are not stand-alone rights and fathers must negotiate with the mother of the child for access to both, the right to time off and to pay (Hastie, 2017). Because it creates a twinned (or derived) entitlement, the new policy does not re-imagine distributions of care and work: when a mother qualifies for ML, the existing ML scheme stays in place, with SPL allowing her to curtail her ML early and to convert the remaining time into SPL to be shared between qualifying parents. In practice, SPL trespasses into the mother’s right to leave and pay – that is, it competes with rather than complements mother’s rights because it reduces her overall ‘pot’ of available leave. Such policy design casts the mother as the principal decision maker (primary parent), accentuating motherhood ‘gatekeeping’ (Rose et al, 2015) to sharing leave with the father. In previous research, SPL uptake was characterised as a choice without recognising the constraints within which this choice is being made (Mitchell, 2015). From the CA lens, the SPL scheme would be recognised as providing parents real opportunity and freedoms to choose whether or not to share leave. We apply the CA to analyse the role of legal rights in the achievement of parents’ capabilities (to use leave and pay), real freedoms and valued functionings; we consider whether

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the SPL regime (focusing on SPP) is a means or resource that is useful for parents to share childcare in the way that they would like to. We find that the way SPL policy is designed reinforces rather than proactively challenges existing gender norms that assume women as primary carers and men as playing a minor role in childcare. The SPL regime does not therefore provide the means to ‘do leave differently’ in practice. First, SPL entails a qualifying period of 26  weeks’ service (unlike ML which does not have length of service requirement). This aspect of the eligibility criteria is designed to reassure employers that new recruits will not just ‘disappear’ on leave (Mitchell, 2015). However, it continues to make leave more readily available to women than men and casts men as reliable employees and women as riskier (Mitchell, 2015). This maintains, rather than challenges, the status quo and does not incentivise the use of SPL as a resource for sharing parenting in different ways. Second, rational choice theory sees money as the key driver of a couple’s decision-making around parental leave (Becker, 1991). As Leitner highlights, an ‘insufficient parental benefit is a structural incentive for female childcare at home’ (2003: 372). It is reasonable to assume that couples make an economically rational decision about who should remain in work and who should use low paid leave, in order to reduce the household income shock (Javornik, 2014). This thesis offers a compelling explanation for gendered differences in leave uptake and suggests that a rise in pay would shift the cost–benefit relationship (Kangas and Rostgaard, 2007: 248) for both women and men across income groups (Fagan and Hebson, 2005: 8). This is not to deny the underlying gendered nature of workforce participation and the existing wage gap but it is to note that the perpetuation of gender norms – and that considerations of masculinity (Rose et al, 2015; Rehel, 2014) – are reinforced by policy design (Javornik, 2014). The entitlement to SPP is addressed with separate criteria and definitions. The amount of pay available to an individual during

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SPL depends on (1) the amount of pay that has been taken or reserved for use during the time that a mother is taking ML; and (2) on the approach that the couple has taken to sharing the time off (concurrently or consecutively, with the option to request intermittent leave). Women who qualify for statutory maternity pay are entitled to pay for up to 39 weeks. Because ML cannot be curtailed until two weeks after the end of the pregnancy, a total of 37 weeks of pay is potentially available to be converted into SPP. Viewed from a capability perspective, SPP poses two issues that limit its potential as a means to achieve valued functioning (shared parenting). First, the flat-rate statutory pay is very low and, second, statutory maternity pay is more favourable to SPP. Each creates a disincentive for a heterosexual father to take SPL. The flat-rate statutory pay available during ML, SPL, PL and AL, is very low: whichever is the lower of £145.183 per week or 90 per cent of normal weekly earnings (Table 4.1). By way of comparison, in May 2018, the average regular pay (excluding bonuses) for employees in the UK was £486 per week before tax and other deductions from pay (ONS, 2018). Maternity benefit thus replaces less than a third of gross average earnings. A person over 25 working full time (37.5 hours per week) and earning the national minimum wage (recently relabelled the ‘national living wage’) would earn approximately £293.63 per week. Maternity and parental benefit is just under half of this minimum wage. Again, such a low pay creates a disincentive for the higher earner (usually the father) to take leave (Javornik, 2014). Additionally, while the approach to SPP broadly mirrors that of maternity pay, it is, overall, less favourable. The initial sixweek period of ML is earnings-related and paid at 90 per cent of earnings, which is not a feature of SPP. Thus, effectively, the first six weeks of ML are better paid than SPL (paid at the statutory weekly rate). This creates an incentive for qualifying mothers to take ML and pay for at least six weeks, and a disincentive to curtail leave to trigger SPL for the father. Even where SPL is

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taken concurrently with ML, the overall pot of SPL is reduced to 33 weeks; it is therefore unlikely for a couple to forego maternity pay and to consider more than a 33-week period of SPL. By viewing SPL policy as means, these seemingly neutral measures take on different meanings, given the existing gendered asymmetries in employment and earnings. Providing mothers and fathers the same formal legal rights (means) does not create the same real opportunity to utilise these rights (capability). An equal treatment approach to the design of SPP is likely to maintain gender inequality in parenting, thus limiting capabilities of both parents to achieve valued functioning. A proactive approach is required to address the pattern of uneven pay dynamics between heterosexual parents. In fact, SPP is not even ‘neutral’ when compared to statutory maternity pay. We argue that in a family with a subverted male breadwinner model (that is, where a mother earns more than a father or where a same-sex couple is allocating childcare responsibility), access to current levels of SPP may create an opportunity for sharing parenting within the first year and provides scope for flexibility in the way it is distributed. However, the breadwinner/one-and-a-half earner model still dominates. Within those families, the legal rights that underpin this policy create a means that is insufficient to support the valued functioning of sharing parenting in the ways parents have reason to value. Employer norms around enhanced pay as a ‘conversion factor’ As noted, it is fairly common for employers to offer enhanced pay to women who take ML. In the UK, 28  per cent of employers with some female staff voluntarily offer some form of maternity pay at a rate above the statutory rate (van Wanrooy et al, 2013). However, SPL legislation is silent about whether or how these workplace norms should adapt to the introduction of SPL. The explicit policy message behind these rules was that the new statutory right would not affect the enhanced occupational

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packages offered by employers to mothers. Most employers are reluctant to enhance SPP, even where enhanced maternity pay forms part of their terms and conditions of employment. A few employers who have offered enhanced SPP as part of their benefit package are considered sector leaders in promoting a ‘family-friendly’ workplace. Employer norms around enhancing SPP within the terms and conditions of employment are a conversion factor that condition parents’ use of SPL to achieve shared parenting. Where a mother’s employer offers enhanced contractual pay to women on ML but a father’s employer does not offer equivalent levels of pay during SPL, there is disincentive for parents to choose to share leave. Anti-discrimination law as a ‘conversion factor’ Fathers are attempting to use antidiscrimination legislation and litigation to influence employer norms around enhanced SPP. This practice interacts with the process of converting SPL into shared parenting and can be considered a conversion factor. In parallel to the family-friendly employment rights outlined earlier, a body of antidiscrimination legislation, contained within the Equality Act 2010 and related case law, is designed to protect workers from discrimination by employers. Under this regime, unlawful discrimination occurs when it is connected to a ‘protected characteristic’. While parenthood is not a protected characteristic, sex is, as is ‘pregnancy and maternity’. Through litigation asserting direct and indirect discrimination, women have taken incremental steps to challenge disadvantages associated with a pregnancy and with a primary caring role. Recently, men have begun to use such litigation to contest access to forms of support that underpin a greater caring role. However, there is no commensurate protected characteristic of parenthood or fatherhood through which men could claim equal treatment with women on ML (Fredman, 2014). In fact, antidiscrimination legislation deters men from using direct

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discrimination to achieve parity with women, where their more favourable treatment is connected to pregnancy and maternity (Equality Act 2010 s.13). Against this background, we examine the emerging case law in the area of enhanced PL and SPP. So far, four claims have been reported. In each case a man taking (or seeking to take) additional PL or its successor SPL, has been offered, by his employer, a basic statutory pay, while a woman on ML would be offered enhanced pay. Each case takes the form of a sex discrimination claim against the employer using the provisions of the Equality Act 2010. A recent employment tribunal decision in Hextall v The Chief Constable of Leicestershire Police held there was no direct discrimination when a man was paid at a statutory rate of SPL while women on ML were afforded enhanced pay. This was because a woman taking SPL (such as the same-sex partner of a woman who had recently given birth) would be treated in the same way. Similarly, the employment appeal tribunal (EAT) decision of Ali v Capita Customer Management Ltd held that a man taking SPL was not in the same situation as a woman taking ML, and thus the comparison failed. The EAT drew a clear distinction between SPL (the purpose of which is childcare) and ML (the purpose of which is to support the health and wellbeing of a birth-mother). The direct discrimination claim was defeated because it was not possible to establish a female comparator in the same situation. Indirect discrimination claims lead to a weighting of the discriminatory impact on men against the policy aim of promoting equal opportunities for women, when in fact the issues are one and the same. In a recent case (being specific to its facts), the Snells, a couple who were both employed by Network Rail, opted to take SPL. While mothers on SPL were paid at an enhanced rate, fathers were paid at the statutory level. Mr  Snell pursued a claim of indirect discrimination and the employer conceded on this point but, what is important here,

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in the run up to the Tribunal, Network Rail changed its policy by levelling down the pay provided to mothers on SPL. Thus, Snell’s individual success creates a ‘pyric victory’ for workers generally (Gilligan, 2016). However, the emergent case law from employment tribunals is not binding on other courts – thus, it should not be given too much weight in terms of the extent to which legal norms are shifted or established. We need to await claims that reach the appeal level. Nevertheless, this early litigation suggests limitations for litigants in using established anti-discrimination law to influence employer norms around enhancing leave. Discussion There are limitations to the extent to which SPL provides a means to achieve shared parenting. First, framing SPL as a transfer mechanism from the mother to co-parent does little to increase shared parenting. SPL does not create a stand-alone right for fathers akin to ML. Instead, it creates a twinned (or parasitic) entitlement for fathers to take extended periods of leave within the first year of a child’s life. The general SPL scheme does not create additional time for leave within a family but trespasses into a mother’s ML and allows for its conversion into SPL once a mother has signalled her intention to end her leave early. The mother must commit to a return to employment when she would end her ML. This means that the father does not have an individual right but can access SPL and SPP through the child’s employed mother who, in turn, must give up her ML. Second, the right to SPP is separate and accompanies the right to SPL. Qualifying parents are entitled to a basic level of statutory pay in general: replacement levels do not exceed the current ML provision, nor do they include the period of 90 per cent of earnings as with statutory maternity pay. While the first six weeks on ML are paid at the potentially higher rate of 90 per cent of the mother’s average weekly earnings, fathers taking SPL

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will be paid at the lesser of 90 per cent of earnings, or the flat rate during the first 37 weeks; the remaining 13 weeks of the year are unpaid. Third, employers, through contractual arrangements, commonly provide enhanced pay to women on ML. This is variously referred to as enhanced maternity pay, occupational maternity pay, or contractual maternity pay, and it forms an important aspect of the resource framework available to women. However, new legislation is silent about how these norms shape SPL. Most employers have been reluctant to enhance SPL, even where enhanced maternity pay has been part of their standard terms and conditions of employment. The explicit policy message behind these rules was that the new legal right would not affect the existing enhanced occupational packages offered by employers to mothers. SPL was promoted as an initiative that would lead to profound social and cultural changes, with the potential to create ‘discursive and material opportunities’ (Ferree, 2012) for gender equality. However, there has been little movement to break up a traditional gendered norm of parenting and childcare through this new policy. Our analysis shows that the statutory scheme of SPL provides limited resource through which to enable the valued functioning of shared parenting while employer norms around enhanced pay tend not to support the conversion of SPL into shared parenting. Conclusion This chapter explored recent policy developments in SPL in the UK. Set within the UK environment of employment law and employment relations, the potential of SPL to expand parents’ capability to share parenting (as part of their capability/ opportunity sets) while simultaneously promoting gender equality at home and at work looked promising. Using the CA, we considered multiple sources of inequalities in parents’

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opportunity sets and exposed the fragile context of parents’ real opportunities to achieve such valued functionings. We introduced the complex dynamics of litigation and how the pursuit of shared parenting/gender equality has, as a result of the wider legal context and employer norms, shifted, and how recourse to litigation is growing. Examining the implementation of SPP, we identified that a key factor was the cost to employers of ‘levelling up’ father’s entitlements. This is more than simply a case of a social policy succumbing to implementation failure and highlights the significance of external dynamics and a broader legal landscape in continuing to shape parents’ capability. While implementation processes may be disrupting at the individual level, the CA as applied in work–family policy (that is, making the shift from the CA to capabilities theories (Robeyns, 2017; see Chapter One)) enabled us to recognise the role of external scrutiny as a pivotal institutional factor for all eligible parents to achieve valued functionings – that is, to remain in work/share parenting in ways they have reasons to value. Such a shift to capability theories (Robeyns, 2017, see Chapter One) facilitated us to recognise and better understand the significance of a wider socio-legal context in shaping parents’ capability while simultaneously addressing gender equality. We argue that the new SPL scheme is not as innovative as its creators claimed it to be and see it as a ‘sound-bite legislation’ (Mitchell, 2015). The CA applied specifically to SPL brought us into realms of social norms and we could show how SPL is based on a heteronormative notion of a primary and secondary parent (Robeyns, 2006) and how it continues to make women the primary parent responsible for children aged under one year. Analysing case law, we found that SPL was not a sufficient resource for parents to have real opportunity to choose arrangements different from prevailing work–family models. As it is, its design maintains incentives to take ML over SPL; by not allowing the framing of reconciliation rights as a parental issue concerning both parents (where there are two), it prevents

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the transformation of gender roles and perpetuates inequality in parents’ opportunity sets to share parenting. Low parental pay is another source of gender inequality and diminishes a couple’s capability to choose the higher earner (usually the man) to care for a baby. Relevant meso-level conversion factors – workplace and organisational practice – are underdeveloped: because employers are not legally obliged to enhance parental pay, only a few have voluntarily topped-up SPP. Limitations within the antidiscrimination regime are another source of inequality in parents’ opportunity sets and hinder the use of litigation to address employers’ practice. We found scant evidence of evolution in the concept of gender equality underpinning family-friendly employment laws and the broader scheme of antidiscrimination law; measures designed to provide reassurance to employers (the qualifying period and no obligation to enhance packages for fathers/co-parents) further diminish parents’ capability set and create considerable roadblocks that disrupt progress towards gender equality in the UK. This is despite scholars calling for a conscious and explicit commitment to the social value of parenthood. Notes 1

2

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the UK’s parenting and lifestyle platform for men: www.musicfootballfatherhood.com. It is useful to note the climate of employment relations in the UK in which statutory individualised employment rights play an important role in setting minimum standards, while collective forms of regulation have, in recent decades, been afforded less significance (Oliver et  al, 2014). Over this period there have been notable developments and a growing recognition of employers’ role in work–life issues. Litigation in the realm of antidiscrimination law has been a catalyst for the development of individualised employment rights (Oliver et  al, 2014: 230). Since the financial crisis, the emphasis has been on keeping legal standards and interventions to the minimum (Dickens, 2014). Interventions in the area of family-friendly provisions, including the introduction of SPL, are a notable exception to a general de-regulatory stance. However, we argue that existing employment

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3

and anti-discrimination laws, if responsive to changes in the gender norms around parenting, may help to bolster the minimal design of this new policy. Approximately €164.93.

References Atkinson, J (2017) ‘Shared parental leave in the UK: Can it advance gender equality by changing fathers into co-parents?’, International Journal of Law in Context 13(3), 356–368. Bacchi, C (2009) Analysing Policy: What’s the problem represented to be?, Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson. Baird, M and O’Brien, M (2015) ‘Dynamics of parental leave in Anglophone countries: The paradox of state expansion in liberal welfare regimes’, Community, Work & Family 18(2), 198–217. Becker, GS (1991) A Treatise on the Family, enlarged edition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Busby, N (2011) ‘Unpaid care-giving and paid work within a rights framework: Towards reconciliation?’, in N Busby and G James (eds) Families, Care-giving and Paid Work: Challenging Labour Law in the 21st Century, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp 189–203. Dickens, L (2014) ‘The coalition government’s reforms to employment tribunals and statutory employment rights – echoes of the past’, Industrial Relations Journal 45(3), 234–249. Fagan, C and Hebson, G (2005) ‘Making Work Pay’ Debates from a Gender Perspective: A Comparative Review of Some Recent Policy Reforms in Thirty European Countries, Brussels: European Commission. Ferree, MM (2012) Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective, Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press. Fredman, S (2014) ‘Reversing roles: Bringing men into the frame’, International Journal of Law in Context 10(4), 442–459. Gilligan, E (2016) ‘A Pyrrhic victory? Discrimination in shared parental leave arrangements’, Insights, www.stronachs.com/news-insights/ insights/53-employment/207-a-pyrrhic-victory-discriminationin-shared-parental-leave-arrangements.

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Gov.uk (2018) New ‘Share the joy’ campaign promotes shared parental leave rights for parents, www.gov.uk/government/news/newshare-the-joy-campaign-promotes-shared-parental-leave-rightsfor-parents. Hastie, B (2017) ‘The inaccessibility of justice for migrant workers: A capabilities-based perspective’, Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 34(2), 20–40. Javornik, J (2014) ‘Measuring state de-familialism: Contesting postsocialist exceptionalism’, Journal of European Social Policy 24(3), 240–257. Javornik, J and Oliver, L (2015) ‘Legal battles loom on shared parental leave from fathers not getting equal benefits’, The Conversation, 14 December, https://goo.gl/BYunIE Kamerman, S and Moss, P (eds) (2011) The Politics of Parental Leave Policies: Children, Parenting and Gender and the Labour Market, Bristol: Policy Press. Kangas, O and Rostgaard, T (2007) ‘Preferences or institutions? Work– family life opportunities in seven European countries’, Journal of European Social Policy 17(3), 240–256. Kaufman, K (2018) ‘Barriers to equality: Why British fathers do not use parental leave’, Community, Work & Family 21(3), 310–325. Koslowski, A and Kadar-Satat, G (2018) ‘Fathers at work: Explaining the gaps between entitlement to leave policies and uptake’, Community, Work & Family, 1–17, doi: 10.1080/13668803.2018.1428174. Leitner, S (2003) ‘Varieties of familialism: The caring function of the family in comparative perspective’, European Societies 5(4), 353–375. Lewis, J (2009) Work–Family Balance, Gender and Policy, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Mackay, F (2014) ‘Nested newness, institutional innovation, and the gendered limits of change’, Politics & Gender 10 (2014), 549–571. Martin, B, Baird, M, Brady, M, et al (2014) PPL Final Report: Paid Parental Leave Evaluation, Brisbane: The University of Queensland, Institute for Social Science Research, www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/ files/documents/03_2015/finalphase4_report_6_march_2015_0. pdf.

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McColgan, A (2000) ‘Family friendly frolics? The maternity and parental leave etc. Regulations 1999’, Industrial Law Journal 29(2),125–144. McKinley, S and Allen, R (2015) ‘Shared parental rights and discrimination’, Equal Opportunities Review 254, 19–20. Mitchell, G (2015) ‘Encouraging fathers to care: The Children and Families Act 2014 and shared parental leave’, Industrial Law Journal 44(1), 123–133. OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) (2017) OECD Family Database. Paris: OECD. Oliver, L, Stuart, M and Tomlinson, J (2014) ‘Equal pay bargaining in the UK local government sector’, Journal of Industrial Relations 56(2), 228–245. ONS (2018) UK labour market: July 2018, www.ons.gov.uk/ employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentand employeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/july2018. Rehel, EM (2014) ‘When Dad stays home too: Paternity leave, gender, and parenting’, Gender & Society 28(1), 110–132. Robeyns, I (2006) ‘Three models of education: Rights, capabilities and human capital’, Theory and Research in Education 4(1), 69–84. Robeyns, I (2017) Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. Rose J, Brady M, Yerkes MA, et al (2015) ‘“Sometimes they just want to cry for their mum”: Couples’ negotiations and rationalisations of gendered divisions in infant care’, Journal of Family Studies 21(1), 38–56. van Wanrooy, B, Bewley, H, Bryson, A, Forth, J, Freeth, S, Stokes, L and Wood, S (2013) The 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study First Findings, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/336651/bis-141008-WERS-first-findings-report-fourth-edition-july-2014.pdf.

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FIVE Comparative social policy analysis of parental leave policies through the lens of the capability approach

Anna Kurowska and Jana Javornik

Introduction Parental leave1 as a social policy intertwines many intersecting policy domains such as family, employment, gender equality, demography, child wellbeing (Kamerman and Moss, 2011) and, in CA terms, parents’ and children’s capabilities to be and do after childbirth (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017). It shapes the conditions under which women can access and engage with employment opportunities, men can access time off for parenting (also Leitner, 2003; Mandel and Semyonov, 2005) and children can access their right to be cared for by both parents (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017). While a growing body of literature examines parental leave in comparative perspective, equal impact

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of policies is assumed across different groups of parents (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017). For example, earlier comparative studies of leave policies do not comprehensively accommodate the socio-economic contexts and how these might affect the ways in which policy entitlements shape parent’s real opportunities (see Chapter One) to use leave. In this chapter, we argue that, in order to understand real opportunities across countries, we need to account for external opportunities and constraints, that is, conversion factors (see Chapter One). At the macro level, these include cultural contexts and the socio-economic differences between countries. We argue that leave policy design embedded in a particular context of conversion factors either exacerbates or reduces gender and income inequalities (for example, Gornick and Meyers, 2003; Ferrarini, 2006; Misra et al, 2010; Ciccia and Verloo, 2012). For this purpose, we analyse parental leave in ten European countries that represent different welfare state regimes, to analyse the extent to which national policies create opportunity structures that allow individuals to achieve valued functionings (see Chapter One) when they become parents. In this chapter, we draw on our earlier work (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017) in which parental leave is operationalised as a social policy-derived means embedded in specific cultural and socio-economic contexts (Kurowska, 2018); these conversion factors condition an individual’s capability to combine work and care, that is, to ‘be and do’ when they become parents. We focus on three interconnected valued functionings for the mother to continue to work after having a child; for the father to care for a child; and for the child to be cared for by both parents. Against this background, we examine whether and how a parental leave scheme, conditioned by cultural and socio-economic conversion factors, creates real opportunity structures, and thus parents’ capabilities to access leave to achieve valued functionings. When comparing countries we depart from the ideal type parental leave architecture that reduces policy-related sources of gendered

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(Ciccia and Verloo, 2012; Saxonberg, 2013; Javornik, 2014; Kurowska, 2018; Javornik and Oliver, in this volume) and classed (Warren, 2015) inequalities in opportunities. In our 2017 study, we analysed parental leave in eight north European countries and found inequality of opportunity for parents across income groups, even in countries such as Sweden. This chapter includes a more comprehensive set of European countries that represent established welfare state regimes (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Javornik, 2014): the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland (AngloSaxon neo-liberal model), Germany and France (corporatist), Sweden and Finland (Nordic), Spain and Italy (Mediterranean), and Poland and Slovenia (post-socialist). Parental leave opportunity structure across gender and income In all European countries, parental leave is offered as a public policy that is delivered at the company level regardless of the welfare state regime, meaning that the negotiations with employers shape the use of leave (Bardach, 1977; Haas and Rostgaard, 2011). Limited resources and lack of support at the workplace, organisational design, culture and unconscious gender bias (Benschop and Verloo, 2011) all affect parents’ uptake of the policy (Skinner, 2005). Parental orthodoxies,2 that is, normative expectations of what proper parenting entails, also make parents, particularly fathers, reluctant to use policy (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017). We argue that individual and non-transferable entitlements are key to opportunities for mothers and particularly fathers, providing the normative guidelines for ‘proper’ fatherhood, the sense of entitlement and opportunities for making claims in the workplace (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017). Millar and Ridge (2013), focusing on single mothers in the UK, argue that accessing statutory entitlements is particularly challenging for low-income parents. Financial hardship and fears over income loss are crucial for understanding working class

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everyday lives (Warren, 2015). This makes leave pay the salient feature of leave policy: when leave is poorly compensated, the magnitude of the household income shock is higher. This is particularly relevant in countries at lower levels of economic development, with more pronounced financial concerns (Grönlund and Javornik, 2014). However, Plantenga and Remery (2005: 48) demonstrate that the income shock is lower when leave is used by women because of the gender wage gap. This means that, in practice, ‘insufficient parental benefit is a structural incentive for female childcare at home’ (Leitner, 2003: 372). A rise in benefits levels shifts the cost–benefit relationship (Kangas and Rostgaard, 2007: 248) for both women and men across income groups (Fagan and Hebson, 2005: 8). However, a benefit cap may exacerbate gender and class inequalities: a limit on the total amount reduces the effective replacement rate, affecting women in higher income groups the most. Most European countries impose a cap; this inevitably reduces the leave pay (Blum et  al, 2016) and creates an opportunity gap between mothers and fathers across income groups. The opportunity gap embedded in a social policy frames individual behaviour (Hobson et  al, 2011; Javornik and Kurowska, 2017; Koslowski and Kadar-Satat, 2018; Yerkes and Javornik, 2018). This calls for an agency-centred analytical framework that allows us to understand how the use of policy is formed by structural opportunities and constraints embedded into the policy. Analytical framework for comparative analysis of parental leave While all European countries offer parental leave, little is known about the mechanisms underlying its use by gender and class. For this reason, we focus on gendered and classed opportunities and conceptualise the links between policy design and inequalities in parents’ opportunity to achieve valued functionings around

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a child’s birth. We draw on our earlier work (Javornik and Kurowska, 2017) and combine the capability approach (CA) (Kurowska, 2018) with Weber’s ideal types analysis (Javornik, 2014), in order to investigate the underlying gendered and classed opportunities and constraints embedded in national parental leave schemes. CA facilitates theoretical conceptualisation of parental leave opportunity structures that shape individuals’ capabilities to achieve valued functionings such as the opportunity to stay in the labour market after having a child; to care personally for a child; and a child’s opportunity to be cared for by both parents (Figure  5.1). Furthermore, it allows us to define the (dis)advantageous effects of leave policy across socio-economic and cultural contexts. In this context, two CA concepts are key to our analysis: the functionings and the capabilities. We focus on the valued functionings as beings and doings intrinsically valuable to individuals (Sen, 1985; 1999). Capabilities, then, are the valued functionings that one is able to achieve. We consider caring for a child while working a valued functioning for the mother and the father, and real opportunity to care for a child and to keep a job as the corresponding capability. While individuals may have access to the same policy means, their real opportunity to use those to achieve valued functioning depends on the conversion factors, in this study understood as the socio-economic and cultural contexts (Figure  5.1). To exemplify, fathers could have the same statutory right (formal opportunity) to parental leave and pay as mothers; however, their real opportunity to use leave may be affected inter alia by economic constraints and/or normative expectations that cast the mothers as a proper carer. Thus, the same right may be converted into different real opportunities on an individual level. Another key distinction in our approach is that of observed functionings (Robeyns, 2005). These are what we observe individuals do or are. In a standard policy analysis, this would translate into a variable such as leave uptake. However, this

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captures the use of policy, which may be a result of either parent’s real opportunities or their own choice. The CA allows us to distinguish between these two. For example, we could explain fathers’ lower leave uptake as their individual choice not to use it or the opportunity and constraint structures framing their choice. Although fathers’ legal entitlement to parental leave may be equal to that of mothers, fathers may not have a real opportunity to exercise it because of the social norms casting mothers as ‘proper’ carers and/or normative expectations of how a proper male employee behaves (for example, Pfau-Effinger, 2012). To assess whether the policy provides parents with real opportunities to care and work, we consider both sources of inequalities. In comparative studies, single/composite indicators are often used as uncontested variables of family policy (Lyness et  al, 2012). These have been subject to much academic controversy (for example, Fagan and Hebson, 2005; Gilbert, 2008; Javornik, 2014). Many established policy indicators are also less adequate predictors of capabilities (real opportunities). Therefore, we use Javornik and Kurowska’s (2017) parental leave components that measure real opportunity effect across gender and class using Javornik’s (2014) benchmarking approach and graphical analysis, as explained later. In the absence of clear criteria for distinguishing more/less valuable functionings of parental leave, we used Hobson’s work– family balance as a valued functioning (2014: 6-7). However, drawing on outcome indicators (of observed functionings) to reflect the capabilities, Hobson’s model conflates means and conversion factors.3 We refined the valued functionings as three interconnected opportunities: to stay in the labour market after having a child; to care for a child; and to be cared for by both parents. We conceptualised leave as a ‘policy-driven means’; embedded in the socio-economic and cultural context, it represents an opportunity structure to achieve valued beings and doings (Figure 5.1). This allows us to distinguish between gender

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Figure 5.1: Theoretical framework

Policy-driven means

Socio-economic and cultural context e.g. parental orthodoxies, work cultures, economic constraints

Individual real opportunities:

Parental leave system:

Parental leave opportunity structures

to stay in the job market while having a child; to care personally for a child; to be-cared-for by both parents.

Gender and class differences in parental leave opportunity structures

Individual differences in capabilities to work, care and be cared by parents

the right to time off income replacement rate

89 Differences in legal entitlements across gender and class

Observed functionings choice

Capabilities

genuine

Conversion factors

Leave uptake by mothers Leave uptake by fathers

Gender differences across class lines in leave update + time with the child

Comparative social policy analysis of parental leave policies

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and class inequalities in one’s real opportunities that can result either from parental leave (means) or the ‘conversion factors’ (that is, normative expectations around parenting, work cultures, economic constraints). Ideal parental leave scheme In our analysis, we consider parental leave as the opportunity structure for parents – ideal policy thus provides a real opportunity for equal parental involvement in childcare across gender and income.4 We assess whether, and how, national leave creates inequalities in real opportunities to achieve valued functionings, considering gender and class (operationalised as income inequality) across diverse socio-economic and cultural contexts. We draw on Javornik’s (2014) method, assessing parental leave against a set of standards across countries, focusing on women’s opportunities to stay in the labour market, fathers’ to care for the child, and children’s to be cared for by both parents. Policy components and assessment criteria

Following Javornik and Kurowska’s (2017) approach, we created five indicators on leave; these account for socio-economic contexts and assess efforts made by governments to support equal parental involvement across gender and income lines (Table 5.1). Data on parental leave systems were sourced from the 2017 International Network on Leave Policies and Research reports (Blum et al, 2017). Data for other indicators come from the OECD. Stat and OECD Family Database (2018), and Eurostat Database (2018a). All data refer to 2017 unless otherwise specified. The indicators are explained in the remainder of this section and summarised in Table 5.1. The equality of treatment (Indicator 1) assesses whether both parents have equal access to paid time off. Maintaining

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enhanced entitlements for mothers without mandating equivalent benefits for fathers creates a disincentive for the couple to share leave. We measure this as the ratio of the full-rate equivalent (FRE)5 of a non-transferable leave for fathers to the FRE of an individual and non-transferable leave for mothers. Following the EU law, we acknowledge the uniqueness of pregnancy (that is, that mothers need some time off for medical reasons) (see Javornik and Oliver in this volume). Thus, we apply the difference approach to accommodate for this need in their leave design (see Table 5.1). Fathers’ access to financially viable6 non-transferable leave (Indicator 2) assesses the absolute length of a financially viable, non-transferable leave for fathers and evaluates financial viability of both its length and the pay. Because fathers are more sensitive to any income loss (Fagan and Hebson, 2005: 95), the replacement rate determines whether fathers take leave at all. Ideally, policy replaces previous earnings at 100  per cent. This is rarely the case but in the absence of micro-level data, we assume that the household income shock depends on the national living standards, that is, a lower replacement rate is financially more viable in more affluent societies. To accommodate this, we first assess the financial viability of leave. We calculate the adjusted replacement rate (ARR1), where the national crude income replacement rate is adjusted by multiplying it by a country’s GDP index (per capita in PPS; EU28=100%; Eurostat 2018a). Next, we calculate the length of a financially viable leave but only for countries whose ARR1 was at least 70 per cent (a threshold for a financially viable benefit).7 Other countries are assigned the lowest score of 1 (Table 5.1). We then assess this against the optimal length of the non-transferable leave. We follow the EU guideline prescribing a minimum of 14-week non-transferable maternity leave (Directive 92/85/EEC); we consider the ideal for fathers to be at least three months: the longer the financially viable non-transferable leave for fathers, the higher the score (Table 5.1).

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Indicator 3 assesses the financial viability of a transferable (family/joint) leave. A country may provide leave as a family entitlement and allows both leave and pay to be transferred between parents. We argue that the income replacement rate determines who takes leave and for how long, indicating whether family leave provision incentivises parents to share leave. By contrast to Indicator 2, joint leave is sensitive to national gender wage gaps. We assume that the household income shock is lower when leave is used by a woman because of her lower average wage (Eurostat, 2018a). To create real opportunities for shared parenting, the ideal income replacement rate of the transferable/family benefit would be 100 per cent. This too is rarely the case. We thus calculate the ARR2 of the transferable parts of parental leave and further adjust it for the gender pay gap to create a gendersensitive adjusted replacement rate (that is, GARR): we multiply ARR2 by the ratio of women’s average earnings to men’s average earnings in each country8 (using latest available data from Eurostat 2018a). To illustrate, the ARR2 for Germany is 79.95 per cent; because the gender wage gap is wide (the earnings ratio equals to 79 per cent), the country’s GARRs drops to 62.76 per cent (Table 5.1). Equality in effective income replacement rate (Indicator 4) assesses the effective income replacement rate, that is, the effect of a benefit cap on leave financial viability. Most schemes operate with a benefit ceiling; this lowers the effective income replacement rate, in particular for parents whose income exceeds the set amount. Gender wage gaps further disrupt gender equality across income groups. Ideally, thus, leave pay would not be capped; alternatively, the cap would be set high enough to affect the highest earners (that is, at twice the average wage). Thus, we estimate effective income replacement rate and calculate the ratio of the benefit cap to the average wage in the country: the lower the ratio the higher the inequality.

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Finally, the congruency of leave and public childcare (Indicator 5) assesses whether the scheme provides real opportunities for mothers to resume employment after the end of paid leave (see Javornik, 2014). In an ideal scenario, public childcare becomes available before the earnings-related leave ends. Contiguous earnings-related leave and services make the second-best scenario – by providing a place in day care without delay, the state also sends a message about acceptability of public childcare (Gornick and Meyers, 2003: 197–206). Alternatively, any gap between leave and nursery provision disrupts real opportunities for parents, particularly for mothers to resume employment. Benchmarking with scoring

All indicators used in this study were measured on different scales. Thus, we translated them into measurable variables by applying Javornik’s (2014) scoring method. This assesses the conformity of each component to an ideal policy (real opportunity) on an eight-point scale, based on the component’s real opportunity potential: the higher the score, the higher the potential. We use Javornik and Kurowska’s (2017) standards to assign a score and score each component repeatedly across countries using a scale with a four-value set of 1-2-4-8 (Table 5.1): • 8 indicates that the component is close to the ideal (real opportunity); • 4 that it is moderately close; • 2 that it is far from ideal; • 1 that the component is the furthest from the ideal. Graphical analysis

In the final step, we analyse leave systems against an ideal provision, using Javornik’s (2014) radar charts. The advantage

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Table 5.1: Parental leave policy dimensions, assessment criteria, scores Score

Parental leave policy dimensions and assessment criteria Equality of treatment (Indicator 1) Equality ratio* values from 0.8 to 1

4

Equality ratio values from 0.5 to 0.79

2

Equality ratio values from 0.1 to 0.49

1

Equality ratio values below 0.1 Father’s rights to a financially sustainable leave (Indicator 2)

94

8

at least three months of individual right to a non-transferable financially sustainable** leave for fathers

4

at least two but less than three months of individual right to a non-transferable financially sustainable leave for fathers

2

at least one but less than two months of individual right to a non-transferable financially sustainable leave for fathers

1

less than one month of individual right to a non-transferable financially sustainable leave for fathers Financial viability of transferable (family/joint) leave (Indicator 3)

8

gendered adjusted replacement rate (GARR)*** of family/transferable leave benefits equal to 75% or higher

4

GARR of family/transferable leave benefits from 65% to 74%

2

GARR of family/transferable leave benefits from 55% to 64%

1

GARR of family/transferable leave benefits below 55% (continued)

SOCIAL POLICY AND THE CAPABILITY APPROACH

8

Table 5.1: Parental leave policy dimensions, assessment criteria, scores (continued) Score

Parental leave policy dimensions and assessment criteria

8

ratio of the benefit cap to the average wage in the country equal 2 or higher

4

ratio of the benefit cap to the average wage in the country from 1 to 1.99

2

ratio of the benefit cap to the average wage in the country from 0.8 to 0.99

1

ratio of the benefit cap to the average wage in the country below 0.8 Congruency of leave and public childcare (Indicator 5)

95

8

no gap (national-level entitlement to public childcare before or immediately after financially sustainable leave)

4

no formal gap, but shortage of places in practice or restrictions on entitlements

2

no national-level entitlement but nearly universal provision by local authorities

1

no legal national-level entitlement and significant shortages in provision by local authorities

Notes: *ratio of the full-rate-equivalent (FRE) of an individual and non-transferable leave for fathers to the FRE of an individual and nontransferable leave for mothers; **at least 70% of ARR, where ARR is an Adjusted Replacement Rate = replacement rate multiplied by country’s GDP index (per capita in PPS, where EU28=100; data from 2017, source Eurostat, 2018b); ***GARR=ARR*(100%-GPG), where GPG is unadjusted gender pay gap in percent (Eurostat) and ARR is constraint not to exceed 100%.

Comparative social policy analysis of parental leave policies

Equality in effective income replacement rate (Indicator 4)

SOCIAL POLICY AND THE CAPABILITY APPROACH

of this method is that policies can be easily read from the chart, reflecting the opportunity potential. Each chart represents one country and comprises five equiangular spokes, one for each indicator. Their length is proportional to the score, and ranges between 1 and 8: the higher the score the higher the opportunity potential. The line connecting the indicators into a radial figure gives the policy a spider web appearance: the larger the area the closer the policy to offering real opportunities. The spider web illustrates the policy’s opportunity potential for parents to keep their job while having a child, to care for the child themselves, and the child’s to be cared for by both parents. Opportunity potential of each component can be read from the chart, clockwise: the top spoke illustrates equality of access to paid time off, followed by the opportunity for fathers to use leave, gender equality of leave (that is, child’s opportunity to be with both parents), equality of opportunity across income groups, and mothers’ opportunity to resume employment. Results Figure  5.2 demonstrates how diversified national policies on leave were in 2017, with countries providing different opportunity structures, failing to fully support equal parental involvement across gender or/and income. Sweden is closest to and Ireland farthest from the ideal system. Among selected countr ies, only Sweden provided comprehensive support for shared parenting, and thus a real opportunity for the child to be cared for by both parents. This was achieved by equal treatment of both parents in terms of leave length and financial compensation. Sweden offered postnatal leave as a single period and does not distinguish between different types of leave. That notwithstanding, it allocated a portion to the mother and a portion to the father as an individual and non-transferable right (three months each), with the rest available as a joint right. This is indicative of the social values

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ascribed to fatherhood and represents a real opportunity for fathers to be actively involved in childcare. However, Sweden did not provide real opportunities for parents across income groups because of the low benefit cap put on leave pay benefit. Slovenia, Finland and Germany were close to the Swedish model but with significantly shorter non-transferable paid leave for fathers. The shareable part of parental leave was less viable in Finland and Germany, reducing fathers’ real opportunities to use it. All three provided legal childcare entitlement at the end of a well-paid parental leave. However, German childcare was mostly provided part-time, with provision gaps across local communities. Since August 2016, Finland has restricted access to nurseries to 20 hours per week; this excludes dual- (full-time) earner families, thus creating obstacles for single parents, usually in lower income brackets. Other countries in this study did not provide real opportunities for parents to share leave. The United Kingdom (UK) is an interesting case because its policy treated mothers and fathers similarly in terms of non-transferable parts of leave but created a complex policy landscape in terms of Shared Parental Leave (for details see Chapter Four, this volume). Interestingly, Poland as a former communist country offered one of the most generous parental leave schemes in Europe, with up to 40  weeks of well-paid sharable parental leave after 14 weeks of maternity leave. In practice, however, only mothers had the right to claim the whole period of leave in one piece. Conservative gender norms (Kurowska, 2018) prevent the translation of statutory entitlements into real opportunities for fathers to claim or negotiate their right to leave either within the family or at the workplace. Not surprisingly, 99 per cent of parental leave users in Poland were women and the 52-week long parental leave was often referred to as ‘maternity leave’ in public debates (Kurowska, 2019). Italy was similar to Poland but offered a more gender equal parental leave scheme: after 20 weeks of a well-paid maternity leave, both parents were offered six months

97

Figure 5.2: Parental leave policies, 2017 (scores on a scale 1–8, maximum = 8), by country Sweden

Spain

Equality of treatment

Equality of treatment

8

8

6

6

4 2 0

Equality of effective income replacement rate

Father’s rights to financially sustainable leave

Financial viability of transferable leave

Congruency of leave and public childcare

4 2 0

Equality of effective income replacement rate

8 6

Father’s rights to financially sustainable leave

Financial viability of transferable leave

Congruency of leave and public childcare

4 2 0

Equality of effective income replacement rate

Father’s rights to financially sustainable leave

Financial viability of transferable leave

98 Congruency of leave and public childcare

France

Finland

Italy

Equality of treatment

Equality of treatment

Equality of treatment

8

8

6

6

4 2

Father’s rights to financially sustainable leave

Congruency of leave and public childcare

2

6

Father’s rights to financially sustainable leave

Congruency of leave and public childcare

0

0

Equality of effective income replacement rate

4

8

Financial viability of transferable leave

Equality of effective income replacement rate

4 2

Father’s rights to financially sustainable leave

0

Financial viability of transferable leave

Equality of effective income replacement rate

Financial viability of transferable leave

(continued)

SOCIAL POLICY AND THE CAPABILITY APPROACH

Congruency of leave and public childcare

Germany Equality of treatment

Figure 5.2: Parental leave policies, 2017 (scores on a scale 1–8, maximum = 8), by country (continued) Poland

Ireland

Equality of treatment

Equality of treatment

6

6

Congruency of leave and public childcare

4 2

Father’s rights to financially sustainable leave

Congruency of leave and public childcare

0

Equality of effective income replacement rate

Financial viability of transferable leave

4 2 0

Equality of effective income replacement rate

Father’s rights to financially sustainable leave

Financial viability of transferable leave

99 UK

Slovenia

Equality of treatment

Equality of treatment

8

8

6

Congruency of leave and public childcare

Equality of effective income replacement rate

4 2 0

6

Father’s rights to financially sustainable leave

Congruency of leave and public childcare

4 2

Father’s rights to financially sustainable leave

0

Financial viability of transferable leave

Equality of effective income replacement rate

Financial viability of transferable leave

Comparative social policy analysis of parental leave policies

8

8

SOCIAL POLICY AND THE CAPABILITY APPROACH

of individual, non-transferable leave; this was further extended up to ten months when the father used at least three months of parental leave. This resembles the German father-friendly solution; however, a low replacement rate (of 30%) offered by the Italian scheme narrows fathers’ real opportunity to use leave. Both the Italian and Polish schemes provide more equal opportunities across income groups than other countries because of higher effective income replacement rates and no caps. By contrast, Germany set the benefit cap at 38  per cent of the national average wage, failing to provide a financially viable leave pay for a great share of employees. Overall, the results demonstrate that, when using the CA, parental leave policies did not fit neatly the established welfare regime clusters and that countries shared similarities beyond regime types. Discussion and conclusion This chapter examined parental leave from the CA perspective to evaluate the real opportunities that parental leave creates for parents and children in ten European countries. Applying the CA, we situated leave in cultural and socio-economic contexts as conversion factors that affect how policy opportunities translate into real opportunities for a child to be cared for by both parents and for parents to remain in the labour market while caring for a newborn (valued functionings). Using the CA as an evaluative space, we defined an ideal type leave scheme that would minimise gender and income inequalities. Our results challenge existing knowledge about parental leave in selected countries and demonstrate that leave policies in Europe are far from homogenous when analysed using the CA. This is demonstrated by the degree to which national schemes create real opportunities across gender and income as well as in the dimensions through which these opportunities are shaped. For example, the Swedish system provided both parents with a real opportunity to use leave, and thus a child with a real

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opportunity to be cared for by both parents. However, equality of opportunity across income was less pronounced, something less known in comparative research. We also found variation between post-socialist countries: while Slovenian parental leave resembled the Swedish social-democratic model (see Javornik, 2014), the Polish was closer to the Italian. The CA was particularly apt for this policy evaluation. First, the approach enables us to thoroughly assess policies from the perspective of an individual, including the child. Focusing on their perspective, it aptly depicts leave’s salient features in terms of valued functionings of both parents and the child. Second, the CA allows us to develop a more nuanced and comprehensive overview of national policies on leave, focusing on the policy design as embedded in cultural and socio-economic contexts; this helped to identify patterns that remain undetected in other types of comparative policy analysis. And third, the more nuanced indicators enabled a simple visual representation of national policies, expressing leave opportunity structures for parents across gender and income in comparative terms. Notes 1

2

3

We use a broad definition of parental leave. This includes individual and non-transferable rights for mothers (in the form of maternity and/or mothers’ quotas in the system); father’s individual and non-transferable rights (paternity and father’s quota in parental leave); and joint rights for parents (transferable/sharable parts of leave). In terms of mothering, for example, media constructs personify polarised acceptable and unacceptable forms of motherhood. These constructs have recently set up the same polarised dynamics for men but emphasising masculine economic reliability alongside emotional and caring involvement surpassing the traditional breadwinner role. In many countries, this can be exemplified by the rise of the new rhetoric of ‘shared parenting’, which often corresponds to a parental and paternity leave system (Javornik and Oliver, 2015). Hobson (2014) does not make the distinction between means and converting factors and only identifies the latter. These include social rights, care benefits and services, organisational culture, social equality of jobs and working

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4

5

6

7

8

times/flexibility, in addition to individual factors (skills, gender, class, age, family support) and societal factors (cultural norms, social movements, media). Policy provisions related to same-sex or adopting parents are not included in this study. We adapt the OECD (2018) methodology for calculating FRE and apply it to an individual and non-transferable leave. Previous studies largely use the term ‘well-paid leave’ to describe financially viable leave, that is, pay that does not discourage fathers from using leave. These studies use crude income replacement rates to define a well-paid leave. To avoid confusion, we proposed a new indicator. We use the median of the values proposed in the literature: Saxonberg (2013): 67 per cent; Wall et al (2009: 36): 70 per cent; Gornick and Meyers (2003: 122): 80 per cent. ARR is limited to 100 per cent. We assume that higher living standards do not render gender pay gaps or household income shocks irrelevant.

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Fagan, C and Hebson, G (2005) ‘Making Work Pay’ Debates from a Gender Perspective: A Comparative Review of Some Recent Policy Reforms in Thirty European Countries, Brussels: European Commission. Ferrarini, T (2006) Families, States and Labour Markets: Institutions, Causes and Consequences of Family Policy in Post-War Welfare States, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Gilbert, N (2008) A Mother’s Work: How Feminism, the Market, and Policy Shape Family Life, New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Gornick, CJ and Meyers, KM (2003) Families that Work: Policies for Reconciling Parenthood and Employment, New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Grönlund, A and Javornik, J (2014) ‘Great expectations. Dualearner policies and the management of work–family conflict: The examples of Sweden and Slovenia’, Families, Relationships and Societies 3(1), 51–65. Haas, L and Rostgaard, T (2011) ‘Fathers’ rights to paid parental leave in the Nordic countries: Consequences for the gendered division of leave’, Community, Work and Family 14(2), 175–195. Hobson, B (2014) ‘Introduction: Capabilities and agency for worklife balance – a multidimensional framework’, in B Hobson (ed) Worklife Balance: The Agency and Capabilities Gap, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 1–31. Hobson, B, Fahlén, S and Takács, J (2011) ‘Agency and capabilities to achieve a work–life balance: A comparison of Sweden and Hungary’, Social Politics 18(2), 168–198. Javornik, J (2014) ‘Measuring state de-familialism: Contesting postsocialist exceptionalism’, Journal of European Social Policy 24(3), 240–257. Javornik, J and Kurowska, A (2017) ‘Work and care opportunities under different parental leave systems: Gender and class inequalities in Northern Europe’, Social Policy and Administration 51(4), 617–637. Javornik, J and Oliver, E (2015) ‘Legal battles loom on shared parental leave from fathers not getting equal benefits’, The Conversation, 14 December, https://goo.gl/BYunIE.

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Kamerman, S and Moss, P (eds) (2011) The Politics of Parental Leave Policies: Children, Parenting and Gender and the Labour Market, Bristol: Policy Press. Kangas, O and Rostgaard, T (2007) ‘Preferences or institutions? Work– family life opportunities in seven European countries’, Journal of European Social Policy 17(3), 240–256. Koslowski, A and Kadar-Satat, G (2018), ‘Fathers at work: Explaining the gaps between entitlement to leave policies and uptake’, Community, Work & Family, 1–17, doi: 10.1080/13668803.2018.1428174. Kurowska, A (2018) ‘(De)familialization and (de)genderization: Competing or complementary perspectives in comparative policy analysis?’, Social Policy & Administration 52(1), 29–49, doi: 10.1111/ spol.12272. Kurowska, A. (2019) ‘Poland: leave policy and the process and goals of a major reform’, in: Moss P., Duvander A. and Koslowski A. (eds) Parental Leave and Beyond: Recent international developments, current issues and future directions, Bristol: Policy Press, pp 39–56. Leitner, S (2003) ‘Varieties of familialism: The caring function of the family in comparative perspective’, European Societies 5(4), 353–375. Lyness, KS, Gornick, JC, Stone, P and Grotto, AR (2012) ‘It’s all about worker control over schedule and hours in cross-national context’, American Sociological Review 77, 1023–1049. Mandel, H and Semyonov, M (2005) ‘Family policies, wage structures, and gender gaps: Sources of earnings inequality in 20 countries’, American Sociological Review 70(6), 949–967. Millar, J and Ridge, TM (2013) ‘Lone mothers and paid work: The “family–work project”’, International Review of Sociology 23(3), 564–577. Misra, J, Budig, M and Böckmann, I (2010) ‘Work–family policies and the effects of children on women’s employment and earnings’, Luxemburg Income Study (LIS) Working Paper Series 543, Luxembourg: LIS. OECD Family Database (2018), www.oecd.org/els/family/database. htm.

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Pfau-Effinger, B (2012) ‘Women’s employment in the institutional and cultural context’, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 32(9), 530–543. Plantenga, J and Remery, C (eds) (2005) Reconciliation of Work and Private Life: A Comparative Review of Thirty European Countries, Brussels: European Commission. Robeyns, I (2005) ‘The capability approach: A theoretical survey’, Journal of Human Development 6(1), 93–117. Saxonberg, S (2013) ‘From defamilialization to degenderization: Toward a new welfare typology’, Social Policy and Administration 47(1), 26–49. Sen, A (1985) Commodities and Capabilities, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Sen, A (1999) Development as Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skinner, C (2005) ‘Co-ordination points: A hidden factor in reconciling work and family life’, Journal of Social Policy 34(1), 99–119. Wall, K, Pappamikaail, L, Leitao, M, Marinho, S and Deven, F (2009), Family Policy in Council of Europe Member States: Two Expert Reports Commissioned by the Committee of Experts on Social Policy for Families and Children, Strasbourg: Council of Europe, www.leavenetwork. org/fileadmin/user_upload/k_leavenetwork/Family_Policy_in_ Council_of_Europe_member_states_en.pdf. Warren, T (2015) ‘Work–life balance/imbalance: The dominance of the middle class and the neglect of the working class’, The British Journal of Sociology 66(4), 691–717. Yerkes, M and Javornik, J (2018) ‘Creating capabilities: Childcare policies in comparative perspective’, Journal of European Social Policy, doi: 10.1177/0958928718808421.

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SIX Ask rather than assume: the capability approach in the practitioner setting1

Jana Javornik, Mara A. Yerkes and Erik Jansen

Introduction So far, this book has focused on the ways in which the capability approach (CA) could help us evaluate social policies from the perspective of ‘end users’, individuals whom the policy is targeting. This chapter takes a different perspective and investigates the relationships between science and society, in particular social policy ‘practice’, by consulting the social policy actors (that is, researchers, professionals and practitioners who deal with or implement diverse policy decisions). This seeks to develop our innovative communication initiative, in which we engaged with social policy professionals and practitioners in a two-way, mutually enriching theory–practice dialogue. Social policies are usually made at a level different from where they are delivered and experienced. But, as Lipsky argues:

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Public policy is not best understood as made in legislatures or top floor suites of high-ranking administrators. These decision-making arenas are important, of course, but they do not represent the complete picture. To the mix of places where policies are made, one must add the crowded offices and daily encounters of street-level workers. (Lipsky, 2010: xiii) The same can be said of social policies. Using the CA as an analytical lens allows for a fresh look at social policy implementation and delivery and helps to better understand how social policies in their entirety play out in different contexts. The historical and political contexts of social policies and people’s different needs and values, the cornerstone of the CA, are increasingly recognised by policy practitioners and professionals who have first-hand experience with policy delivery or application at the local level. Their experience with multiple access and eligibility-related issues on the ground may shed new light on the applicability of the CA, and how this approach may help to identify key features grounded in local knowledge, be it around social policy design, delivery or implementation. We invited policy professionals and practitioners who work directly with diverse policy target groups in order to collect the views and opinions of professionals and practitioners as ‘nonexperts’ and street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 2010) while sharing our work in progress with new audiences. The group involved in this project comprises local government, a knowledge institute, social work practitioners, charities, and membership and voluntary organisations, all supporting individuals in attaining capabilities across a range of social policy domains included in this book, that is, housing, education, gender equality, family policy and care policy. The experts on whose experiences we draw in this chapter are from the Netherlands, South Korea and the United Kingdom and act as liaisons between government policymakers and citizens/residents. The knowledge exchange

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benefited both groups and the social interactions offered the opportunity to co-create knowledge on the CA as a scientific topic with traditionally perceived levels of expertise. Establishing shared ownership with professionals and practitioners, this enhances expert knowledge about the relevant CA principles most likely to be adopted in the local policy implementation processes. In that sense, we are not the authors of this chapter, but merely the storytellers of the views shared by our external group (professionals and practitioners; presented in Table 6.1). Our conversations with the professionals named in Table 6.1 took place between August and October 2018 and were conducted in Dutch and English; the interactions with the Dutch social work professionals took place between 2015 and 2018 in diverse formal and informal settings. The named professionals read Chapter One of this volume and were asked to define ‘capability’ from their perspectives, comment on the use of the CA in their work and what is needed to make it useful (and conversely, what they struggled with). The Dutch social workers were asked to voice their concerns and issues over daily work with clients and communities while dealing with operationalising national and local social policies. In these conversations (often in workshops or symposium sessions) we then explained the CA and asked whether it would help them deal with these concerns and issues. We took notes and asked the group to review and revise these notes and this chapter. In reviewing the notes, we identify three broad themes: theoretical and conceptual debates; applicability of the CA; challenges and newly emerging opportunities. The meaning of capability Four of our named experts had not heard of the CA before speaking with us, or at least not in detail. Despite this, they all shared an underlying philosophy inherent in the CA – namely the emphasis on capabilities, or individuals’ real freedoms to live

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Table 6.1: Policy professionals and practitioners involved in the development of this chapter Name

Role

Organisation

Anita Peters

Project Manager, social policy researcher and consultant

Movisie, national The Netherlands knowledge institute in the social domain

Boram Kimhur

Social policy researcher and former urban and housing specialist

Architects for Society for People (NGO); UN-Habitat

South Korea/The Netherlands

Chloé Chambraud Gender Equality Director

Business in the Community

The United Kingdom

Rhona Cunningham

Chief Executive Officer

Fife Gingerbread Scotland, the – support agency United Kingdom for single parent families

Victoria Stirling

Head of Partnerships

LiveWell – Leadership Team, South Yorkshire Housing Association Limited

The United Kingdom

Dr Francesca Zanatta

Children’s rights activist and academic

University of East London

The United Kingdom

Dutch social workers

Social work practitioners

Social Services (municipality of Venlo and Nijmegen; workshop participants)

The Netherlands

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Ask rather than assume

the lives they have reason to value. As both Anita and Chloé explain, capability and the CA are about real opportunities. Anita describes capability as: “trying to view it from a nonnormative perspective. It’s not about telling people what to do but creating awareness, so that people can live their lives in as good a way as possible, being that person whom one wants to be.” Shared understanding of capability in terms of people’s ‘real’ opportunities means understanding the importance of the context and emphasising the conditions needed to ensure individuals have real opportunities (see Chapter One, this volume). Our group of professionals and practitioners talked about the role of context or conditions in shaping capability. Boram’s discussion of capability is illustrative of this point (emphasis her own). “For me, enhancing capability of individuals sounds like providing necessary conditions and opportunities for the individuals, and thus they can find solutions to their own affairs in a given circumstance. My work has focused on policy measures, or projects for helping vulnerable groups to have access to adequate housing. It naturally made me consider how a project or policy can create necessary conditions for people to have access to housing, adding to the measure providing dwelling units directly. For instance, some people could build or improve their housing as long as they have access to small loans, legal permits, or skills. Some people had more freedom to choose a housing type and location within their available budget because they have more access to mortgages, information, controlled rental housing sector, various size of flats available, and decent public transport systems in their city, while some people in other cities are forced to choose a house at an undesirable location due to the lack of those conditions. Or, within a city, there is also inequality in having these conditions. These are only few examples of (external) conditions and opportunities related to housing. Perhaps

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because of these experiences and observations, in practical terms, I see capability as a bundle of necessary opportunities and conditions a person has.” Considering our participating practitioners were all involved in the implementation of social policies in a variety of capacities, their shared understanding of capability as crucially being related to the context and conditions of an individual is not surprising. We were often given examples of the gap between social policies, developed at the national level, and their implementation at the local level, where context and conditions matter the most. Context and conditions matter given the complexity and interrelatedness of social policy areas. For example, informal care policy in the Netherlands is meant to improve the lives of caregivers and care-receivers by facilitating informal care at home. Anita has been caring for her long-term partner, with whom she has been living apart-together. This family form is not recognised under Dutch law. Given this situation, Anita does not have any power of attorney should her partner become unable to advocate on his behalf. All parties involved (her partner, herself and his children from a previous relationship who do have these legal rights) would prefer that she had a voice in this situation. However, the absence of recognition of diverse family forms (regulated by a policy area separate from informal care; see also Chapter Four this volume) means that the family would need to legally terminate his children’s rights to provide rights to his partner (Anita). Taking such measures goes against the emotional bond that continues to exist between a father and his children, suggesting the relationship is broken, while this is not the case. Similar recognition of context and conditions in creating real opportunities (capability) was explicit among the Dutch social workers as well. Social work most notably focuses on social change, development, social cohesion, and empowerment of people by working to improve individual agency as well as to improve the structures in which people enact their agency

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(IFSW, 2014). In the Netherlands, this structural side was felt to be particularly undervalued, as current national policies often reflect a neoliberal atmosphere and emphasise individual responsibility of clients and citizens for their own wellbeing (Putters, 2014), without sufficiently taking into consideration citizens’ real opportunities to enhance their own wellbeing. The way the concept of capability rebalances responsibilities makes it possible to voice concerns over policies that blame the victim. When collectively reflecting on the capability framework, a director of local social services exclaimed: “This is why I became a community social worker in the first place!” Applying the CA in these situations means making visible the context and conditions necessary to provide individuals with real opportunities to organise the life they have reason to value. In other words, it demonstrates in a variety of ways the context or conditions needed if social policies are to be an effective resource in improving capability (Drèze and Sen, 2002). Less explicit in these examples was the individual’s agency – their capacity to be ‘active agents’ (Sen, 1999) in perceiving and interpreting social situations (Mead, 1934; see also Chapter One, this volume). The CA emphasises not only conditions and context (conversion factors in CA terms) but also agency, as having options requires a self-driven choice process (Robeyns, 2017). The potential of the capability approach The perceived applicability of the CA was wide across all policy domains. We found similar responses across the group and found at least four potential contributions to their professional work. First, the CA provides a useful account of their work and ambitions. Before reading our chapter, Victoria would describe their services as having life changing effects on participants. Having engaged in our project, she redefines their housing services as helping to build better opportunities for individuals: “Looking at what strengths individuals have and thinking

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about their agency to make change happen or improve their lives…shifted the emphasis from helping individuals, to giving individuals voice and agency to help them change their lives.” Other experts provide similar accounts. They recognise that individuals’ real opportunities may be influenced directly by professionals or their organisations, whereas the ability to engage with this opportunity (individual agency) can be affected only indirectly via empowerment through educational processes (for details, see Chapter Two, this volume). Therefore, policy can align the contextual conditions to create real opportunities for individuals, whereas other institutions and applied research can help to increase awareness and empower individuals, thus enhancing their agency. That said, the need for interorganisational collaboration to improve individuals’ capability and agency is growing. A second potential contribution of the CA is the possibility of improving or changing individual lives. Social policies are developed at a collective level and in broad societal terms, while individuals’ lives are generally quite complex. As Rhona described this: “There are 100 things that impact on one’s life and influence on what they can do. The role of support agencies is to support people in their engagement with policies, in trying to live the life they have reason to value. The CA adds weight to how support agencies work and their underlying premise that there is no one direction and each individual is different. Academic recognition of this complexity and what they are doing means we can now give our approach a name, identify what we are doing and be confident about our work.” To achieve this potential and have meaningful impact, professionals and practitioners need to interact with ‘end users’ (participants, citizens, or clients). Lipsky (2010) argues: ‘Ideally

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and by training, street-level bureaucrats should respond to the individual needs or characteristics of the people they serve or confront. In practice, they must deal with clients collectively, because work requirements prohibit individualized responses’ (Lipsky, 2010: xiv). Victoria highlights this, recognising that, as ‘place-based practitioners’, they can and should involve the participants in the design of services and ensure co-production at all levels as far as this is possible: “Our programme is one of the building blocks for individuals to achieve agency and is based on a five-way approach to wellbeing. Our initiatives are designed with participants, using the principle of co-partnership and co-production to make our interventions meaningful. For this, it is important to better understand what people want and need, tailoring our offer to allow individual agency and independence. We want to provide what works for individuals.” Third, the CA provides space for the complexity of the situations professionals and practitioners are dealing with on a day-to-day basis. As Boram explains: “I have directly or indirectly experienced failed projects and policy interventions because of little consideration of conversion factors. Even if permanent housing units are provided for target beneficiaries, real improvement of their livelihoods may not happen. It can be because of stigma on social housing, or the beneficiaries prefer to have lump sum cash in their hand and thus sell the given housing units (or selling entitlements for the units to speculators)…In order to make a real change in people’s livelihoods and create a real impact, various factors and surrounding stakeholders’ interests had to be considered and integrated into the project design.”

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The need for including such complexity in the analysis is not only important from a national policymaking perspective. Chloé suggests that, for employers developing and implementing various workplace policies around work–family balance: “The CA allows employers to see social reality by highlighting the complexity and nuance – it allows us to think about the quality of choices, how good these are and how individuals actually make choices. Without the CA, we tend to think in binaries (about work or care) but not the quality of work or care and what these mean for the options one has.” Finally, the CA has the potential to incorporate multiple stakeholder perspectives. As Anita explains, the CA “helps us to clarify possibilities for individual carers (in our participatory research with families) as well as policymakers locally”. Francesca, a children’s rights activist, highlights how incorporating multiple stakeholder perspectives creates potential for improving the voice of certain neglected groups, such as children: “Children’s needs and rights are often approached from the adult’s perspective. Taking a capability approach would give voice to children by focusing on how to achieve the understanding of their capacity for agency and consent. It would allow freedoms to be defined from the child’s perspective, and in some cases help children to be cocreators and partners in decision-making processes that affect them.” This underlines the need for policy professionals to be able to identify the real opportunities individuals see themselves: an opportunity may be objectively present, but subjectively not perceived as such, and thus not considered as a real choice (Hobson, 2016). The risk of ignoring someone’s ‘perceived

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alternatives’ may be that one incorrectly and unknowingly presupposes policy to provide opportunities that are in fact unrealistic, in spite of good intentions. Rhona, whose organisation operates in a highly deprived area, unpacks this by highlighting how living in poverty becomes an overwhelming experience, and where securing finances overrides valued activities an individual may consider part of a good life: “Poverty is a huge factor in people’s lives, causing stress and anxiety…Working with parents is a journey… People are caught up in their anxieties (money worries, relationships); they do not have the head space [for other valued activities]; this prevents them from doing something as simple as putting on the wellies and going to the beach and getting the freedom this allows…This is one unobserved consequence of poverty that we as case workers need to recognise.” Overall, the potential applicability of the CA is in informing the actions of those explicitly involved in policy implementation and application on three levels: how they should act, why they should act, and with whom or what should they align their actions. By informing the question of how one should act, the approach offers guidelines to develop strategies that more adequately cater for the complexity of human lives and the nuanced interrelations between human agency and the real opportunities individuals face in their unique contexts. The CA provides a framework by which to legitimise their actions that are closer to individuals’ lives than the often reductive or limited social policy frameworks. This relates to the often-asked question: Why should I act? With the CA offering an integral framework, its central assumptions (as framed by Robeyns, 2017) can act as a normative starting point that transcends disciplinary and professional boundaries. This links to the CA as providing a way to integrate or align one’s professional actions with the actions of others, be it professionals,

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agencies or institutions. It informs the question: With whom or what should I align my actions to contribute to a common cause? In the public sphere, particularly, professionals and practitioners see multi-layered problems, with inequality and social complexity involving a wide network of different stakeholders and influencing factors. Rhona illustrates this using the example of single parents: “In the UK, there is a huge drive to be successful, with increasing work and life demands across one’s life. But under current conditions, one needs to be a superman or a superwoman as demands are such that both parents must work. Such discrepancy is obvious in rural areas where people need to work to pay the mortgage and utilities and cannot afford any fantastic lifestyles.” This means that social policies are becoming increasingly unfit to solve the problem when they focus on one variable or factor alone. Addressing these social problems requires a web of stakeholders engaging in collective action; for this, partnerships based on a common ideology are required. The CA can be one such integrative, cohesive framework, providing fundamental properties and unifying perspectives for enhancing individuals’ wellbeing. What’s needed to make the CA effective Professionals and practitioners relate to the underlying philosophy and clearly see the potential of the CA. This recognition does not automatically make the CA an effective framework for them. On the one hand, professionals and practitioners face difficulties because social policies are not necessarily developed with capabilities in mind. Such policies require a transformational shift towards ‘capability-based social policies’, which we discuss in the concluding chapter of this

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volume. On the other hand, professionals and practitioners face more practical issues, of which three were shared in the conversations we had: the abstract nature of the CA, the need for a common language, and feasibility concerns given the gaps between policy development and policy implementation. Capability ‘theories’ for domain-specific social policy applications

The difference between the capability approach and capability theories (Robeyns, 2017; see also Chapter One, this volume) became obvious as the approach was generally considered too abstract. Both our groups recognised that the CA was not articulated enough to offer guidelines for action in specific policy domains. Paradoxically, the open-ended and abstract nature of the capability approach is what also makes it so appealing to professionals and practitioners. To make it useful, however, requires domain-specific knowledge and theories in order to operationalise fundamental concepts for applying the approach in practice. For both groups, the CA does provide the evaluative space that recognises human diversity, and the role of freedom, agency, choice and context, which they recognise as key. As Robeyns (2017) highlights, the CA as a general model offers a specific view of humanity that can be applied to any discipline if enhanced or specified through domain-specific knowledge. In this case, notions from the CA should be combined with theories or frameworks from disciplines relevant to specific social policy domains to become directly applicable in social policy practice. Two other factors were seen as necessary for adopting the CA in practice: a common language and a set of evaluative instruments against which to assess local initiatives. Language and translating the concepts

The CA being an open, underspecified and general approach (Robeyns, 2017) is problematic from the viewpoint of needing

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a common language to use it effectively in daily work. While it made sense on an intuitive level, effectively grasping its idea and talking about it to others seemed more challenging. As Rhona put it: “I am not an academic and so I had to read this chapter in several rounds. It made sense, but I had to put in a lot of effort. I only grasped it when I found an example from my work. It made perfect sense thereafter.” This was echoed by others. Anita explained: “In the first instance, it just made sense from an instinctive point of view – it fit. But it was difficult to grasp why because of the terminology.” For the CA to be useful for her team, they needed to simplify its definition. “I just use it to refer to micro/meso/macro context factors in relation to what happens to people or what people would prefer to happen. I use it to try and show that ‘equality’ doesn’t have to mean ‘the same’ for everyone. Every situation is different.” The CA as it is applied in research is “too complex with too much scientific detail to be useful as it is”. Chloé, while not familiar with the CA framework, read about it a long time ago and found it comprehensive and useful. However, she too highlighted the level of complexity: “For employers to engage with it, to be useful, the language needs to be simplified. Otherwise, employers will switch off and not engage with it.” As Boram suggests, the CA is useful but “it is necessary to translate its concepts into practical terms familiar to practitioners and policymakers, while minimising the loss of the CA tenets.” This again resonates with Robeyns’ (2017) distinction between the CA and capability theories, with the latter requiring not only domain-specific knowledge and perspectives but also language. A shared language not just for professionals but also for policymakers is important. Victoria highlighted the need for a set of communication tools to be able to better engage with policymakers at the national level – they both need the same vocabulary for this to be effective: “Our organisation already

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works within the CA space, but a shared language does not exist, so it may be less useful.” Feasibility

Finally, much can be done to simplify the CA language to improve its applicability for professionals, but a gap is still often experienced between social policy as it is developed at the central level and social policy as it is implemented at the local level. Central–local tensions are characteristic across all policy fields included in this chapter. As Anita, Victoria and Rhona explain, looking at their separate policy domains, policymakers at the national level see the need to create an ‘ideal’ situation (of meeting current needs in a given society). While this works for ‘abstract citizens’ at the collective level, our group demonstrates how national level policy may be too distant from the lives of people with whom they work or come in contact with through their work. Many professionals and practitioners experience policy implementation or application as Anita described: as they focused on responsibility, efficiency, efficacy and meeting performance indicators, which shifts the focus away from individuals’ agency to addressing social problems as cheaply as possible. Rhona’s reflection is illustrative here: “As the organisation on the ground, we face great difficulty using national policies. We operate differently: we work with people; we listen to their stories and how they access social rights and respect their wishes. The CA helps us to understand that our work should basically be about what’s important to people and this is not always about the money.” Despite national–local implementation challenges, our groups strive to make national policies as meaningful and relevant to participants as possible in the local spaces and contexts within

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which they work. Victoria illustrates this by drawing on the national–local tensions: “At the national level, more people are doing things in different ways. National policy shapes what local levels can deliver and we [local partners] need to respond and deal with the problems. The more that policy can be set out as a framework within which to operate the better – some uniformity across levels is required around how issues are approached, allowing for the local flavour. Without at least some flexibility, things get lost.” Local variation in social policy implementation has gone almost completely undetected in policy research (Treib and Pülzl, 2006) and consultation with our groups reiterates how a perfect policy implementation is hardly achievable at the local level. This suggests that policies as adopted at the national level continue to change through the process of implementation and delivery; thus, they can diverge from the initial goals and intentions of policy makers in order to become more relevant in the diverse local contexts in which they are implemented. Conclusion A central argument of this book is that the CA offers an innovative framework for researching social policies as well as evaluating and implementing them. Viewing social policy as a resource (means in capability terminology), the CA sees individuals in relation to the characteristics that may enhance or limit their voice (agency) in relation to their immediate surroundings (family, work, community) and in relation to the broader social context in which they live (the underlying norms and values of the society and culture). This resonates with social policy professionals and a CA to social policy has the potential to inform practitioners and professionals’ work. For this to happen,

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professionals and practitioners need to be able to shift from a CA to social policy in its broad and abstract form to capability theories, which are informed by domain-specific knowledge, perspectives and language (see Chapter One, this volume). Even then, professionals and practitioners may face challenges because of the gap between national-level policymaking and local policy implementation or application in their field. After the consultation with our group of applied researchers, social policy practitioners and professionals, we emphasise the need to study policies at the level of recipients and the network of actors involved in their delivery, translation and implementation in general. We see the discretion in policy implementation as potentially beneficial because it enables practitioners and professionals to develop practices that better deal with issues on the ground (Lipsky, 2010). One way to close the gap between the national and local-level implementation would be through a transformational shift from a CA to social policy, to capability theories applied in policy and practice, towards capability-based social policies (see Chapter Eight, this volume). In the meantime, a stronger connection between abstract citizens at the collective level and individuals and practitioners at the local level would be beneficial for social policy researchers. This chapter offers a crucial insiders’ perspective on how capability is seen from a professional and practical social policy view, and what this means for citizens is the focus of the next chapter. Note 1

We would like to thank each of the social policy professionals and practitioners who worked with us on this chapter. It truly was an informative and enriching process, and a conversation to be continued.

References Drèze, J and Sen, A (2002) India: Development and Participation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Hobson, B (2016) ‘Gendered dimensions and capabilities: Opportunities, dilemmas and challenges’, Critical Sociology, 10.1177/0896920516683232. IFSW (International Federation of Social Workers) (2014) ‘Global definition of social work’, www.ifsw.org/global-definition-ofsocial-work/. Lipsky, M (2010) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, 30th anniversary, New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Mead, GH (1934) Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist – George Herbert Mead, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Putters, K (2014) Rijk geschakeerd, The Hague: Netherlands Institute for Social Research. Robeyns, I (2017) Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. Sen, A (1999) Development as Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Treib, O and Pülzl, H (2006) ‘Implementing public policy’, in F Fischer, GJ Miller and MS Sidney (eds) Handbook of Public Policy Analysis: Theory, Politics and Methods, New York: Routledge, pp 89–108.

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SEVEN Social investment, human rights and capabilities in practice: the case study of family homelessness in Dublin

Rory Hearne and Mary Murphy

Introduction Since 2014, Ireland, and particularly Dublin, has experienced a dramatic increase in family homelessness, primarily caused by the severe austerity regime between 2008 and 2013 that effectively halted new social housing construction budgets. Increased private rental sector evictions, due to weak tenant protections and rising rents, also contributed. In Dublin, where 78 per cent of homeless families in Ireland are located, there was a four-fold increase between 2014 and 2017 in the number of homeless families living in emergency accommodation (mainly commercial hotels) from 271 families with 585 children, to 1,115 families with 2,270 children. Families are mainly young,

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the majority (60%) born in Ireland; 65 per cent are headed by lone parents, predominantly women (Hearne and Murphy, 2017). Homelessness is a societal problem, with those affected by homelessness experiencing a severe form of housing exclusion and inequality. It requires a social policy response because without a secure affordable home people are without the fundamental capability to achieve a range of valued functionings in relation to individual safety and wellbeing, family formation, parenting, education, employment and social relationships. The principal Irish policy response to this new family homelessness crisis is a recently introduced form of marketised social housing policy, a private rental subsidy, the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP). HAP is a state subsidy paid to private landlords to house low-income tenants who qualify for social housing. This contrasts with traditional social housing provision where the local authority directly provided housing. In early 2017, in response to growing numbers of homeless families being accommodated temporarily in commercial hotels, a new type of emergency accommodation was introduced, Family Hubs. Based on co-living arrangements, Family Hubs are refurbished buildings converted into shared facility accommodation (in former religious institutions, warehouses and hotels). By July 2018, 18 Family Hubs were operational in Dublin providing emergency accommodation for 465 families. Numbers of families in the Hubs ranged from 12 to 98, with half accommodating more than 25 families. Our research aims to fill a knowledge gap in the understanding of recent developments in Irish social housing policy, particularly from the end-users’ perspective, relating to the impact of HAP and Family Hubs on the rights and capabilities of homeless families. We used a participatory methodology, the Participatory Action Human Rights and Capability Approach (PAHRCA),1 to empower homeless families to engage in a process of co‑evaluation of policies and action to influence policy. This chapter presents the key findings from this case

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study of the PAHRCA where we worked as co-researchers with an NGO, peer researchers and homeless families in emergency accommodation in Dublin to co-construct policy relevant knowledge. The findings reveal how the capabilities (particularly valued and achieved functionings, conversion factors and agency; see Chapter One, this volume) and rights of homeless families were affected by recently introduced housing policies described earlier. PAHRCA enabled homeless families to co-construct with us as researchers, and to articulate to policymakers, new ‘bottomup’ understandings of how key operational mechanisms within HAP and Family Hubs affected their capabilities and rights. The families were empowered to ‘raise their voice’ in the policy sphere and to enhance individual and collective agency within social policy development. This highlights the importance of participatory processes that can engage vulnerable groups (end-users) in putting the ‘valued outcomes and individual capabilities’, defined by the vulnerable group itself, central to the design and evaluation of policies. This approach helps reveal how social policies can exacerbate inequalities and how alternative policies for achieving social justice can be developed. Capabilities, human rights and the PAHRCA participatory approach The capability approach (CA), developed by Sen (2002), develops the human rights approach. Human rights are the basic and fundamental rights and freedoms that belong to everyone. Human rights approaches are concerned with realising state obligations and practical outcomes while also recognising people as key actors in their own development. Human rights can be transformative and empower disadvantaged ‘rights-holders’, however, weak enforcement mechanisms and underlying power configurations limit the realisation of rights. While rights can exist in legislation or international treaties they are not necessarily implemented for people. Capabilities can enhance the human

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rights concept by opening up analysis of what quality of life people can achieve in reality. Both human rights and capability theory emphasise the importance of participatory processes with vulnerable groups and their potential contribution to capabilityenhancing social policy (Alkire, 2008; Burchardt and Vizard, 2011). Individual and collective agency is a capability-enhancing approach by which to confront structural injustice. As demonstrated in this chapter, PAHRCA weaves together components of human rights principles and capability theory in order to develop a participatory approach that can co‑produce new understandings of how policy has an impact on the rights and capabilities of vulnerable groups (Murphy and Hearne, 2016). Our PAHRCA framework, therefore, aims to enhance agency and voice in the co-production of knowledge. In reflecting the lived experience of the vulnerable, research can reposition ‘the researched’ from being a ‘social problem’ to become ‘a community of valorised and normatively legitimate subjectivities’ (Farrugia and Gerrard, 2016). This form of new (often gendered) knowledge disrupts embedded, and often implicit, knowledges or assumptions employed in social policy. The PAHRCA method was implemented by the authors over six months (January–June 2017) working in a collaborative partnership with NGOs providing homeless services and advocacy and three peer researchers (formerly homeless themselves and currently tenants of a housing NGO). We engaged with ten homeless families and worked through the PAHRCA process over ten weeks, culminating in a ‘voice– action–outcome’ initiative; a dialogue with senior policymakers and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) and the publication of a national policy report on the research findings. In the early stages of the research we met NGO workers and peer researchers to co-design how a participative rights and CA might be implemented with a group of homeless

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families. We worked with the NGOs to recruit ten families living in one Family Hub. Group sessions were then held with the families on ten occasions. The participant families were all female-headed (nine participants were lone parents, seven were of Irish origin and three were migrants), all had one or more young children ranging in age from six months to 13 years of age. In a first session with the families, the aim and objective of empowerment through this research was explained, and we provided a rights-based understanding of Irish housing policy. The initial session took place in a location near the Family Hub, but all subsequent sessions took place in a communal space within the Hub. The initial focus of the research was to gather families’ experiences of the HAP, however the families consistently raised the impact of the Hub on their capabilities and wellbeing. The sessions enabled the families to discuss how their experience of HAP and the Family Hub affected their (and their children’s) right to housing and capabilities. Participative methods (such as drawing and small group dialogue) were used to identify their key issues of concern, to contextualise them in a rights and capability framework, and consider ways to influence policymakers. In the latter stages we agreed to organise a ‘dialogue’ between the families and policymakers to try influence policy, and we prepared the families for the dialogue through role play and co-constructing solutions aimed at transforming policy. Co-constructed new knowledge and understanding This section provides some of the key co-constructed findings in relation to how the marketisation of social housing policy through HAP, and the new form of emergency accommodation, Family Hubs, had an impact on, and intersected with, the capabilities and rights of the homeless families, and it concludes with co-constructed alternative housing policies.

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Homeless families’ experience of marketisation of social investment through the HAP

To realise opportunities, capabilities need the input of resources and conversion factors. The capabilities of families were negatively affected by the housing crisis with an eroded supply of public social housing. Inadequate resources meant that families were unable to afford or access private accommodation, and thus were made homeless. The state’s policy response was to provide additional resources through the HAP subsidy to cover the cost of renting private sector accommodation, up to a market rent limit. In HAP the household must source the accommodation in the private rental market and find a landlord who will accept the HAP payment. The state then pays the rent to the landlord. Some tenants have to pay informal ‘top-ups’ to landlords to secure accommodation at a rent higher than HAP limits. Under HAP when a private landlord decides not to renew a tenancy it is the tenant’s responsibility to source new accommodation. In our research, homeless families highlighted that having access to the HAP payment is ineffective if they cannot find either a) accommodation that is within the rent set by the HAP limits and/or b) a private landlord who will accept the payment. Families find it extremely difficult to compete for the limited (and increasingly expensive) private rental accommodation available in the Dublin housing market. Homeless families are trying to compete against tenants who are more likely to have recent work and landlord references, access to social networks, as well as the capacity to negotiate (engage in ‘bidding wars’ and offer higher rents beyond HAP limits). Therefore, despite access to HAP, the homeless families continue to experience a structural exclusion from the rental market in Dublin. The HAP policy can thus be described as an ineffective social conversion factor (form of institutional social housing support) for these homeless families. It does not enable

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them to convert their resources into achieved functionings (the affordable secure home which they required), and undermines the functionings which families value, such as family relationships and aspirations for their children. Their personal conversion factors were often insufficient to enable them to use the HAP subsidy to access accommodation, as they did not have landlord references or work references to enable them to compete. Most families reported that they were filtered out of the private rental search at the first hurdle, often unable to get emails, phone calls or texts returned and unable to access viewing appointments, as one mother in the Hub explains: “The very few replies from my emails I do receive are asking for current work reference and landlord reference. The trouble is I do not have a landlord reference as I ran into rent arrears in my last home. I do not have a current work reference either as I am not working. I feel like I am at a loss trying to find a home for my kids and I simply do not have what they are looking for.” (Amy) Use of HAP, rather than traditional local authority housing, as a social conversion factor (and a resource) places responsibility for identifying and sourcing a property on the tenant. The stress of trying to locate such properties negatively affected the families’ wellbeing and reinforced existing inequalities in relation to inadequate personal conversion factors of these vulnerable families. This is particularly the case for migrants, single parents, Travellers, and other vulnerable people with complex lives (families with children with special needs, those with limited literacy, people without regular access to computers, people on a low income unable to meet additional house search costs (internet access, mobile phone credit). These families were also discriminated and stigmatised by landlords, being restricted from viewings of, and access to, rental properties.

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The impact on families’ mental health from failing to compete

This marketised form of social housing provision deepened these families’ socio-economic vulnerability as it exacerbated their low level of personal conversion factors and exposed them to constraining social conversion factors (private market institutional discrimination). In the case of the marketisation of social housing via HAP we can see then how a lack of resources, combined with constraining personal and social conversion factors led to negative impacts on the wellbeing of the families, ultimately denying them access to the basic need of housing. This affected the wellbeing of the homeless families beyond the material denial of access to housing as it also reduced the capacity and agency of the most socially excluded families. ‘Failing’ to compete in this competitive housing market has severe socio‑emotional impacts on the homeless families who described it as “extremely difficult” and “soul-destroying” trying to find HAP accommodation: “You can only go on so many viewings before your mental health is affected. It knocks you back every time you go see a place and you aren’t successful” (Chloe). Policymakers underestimate (and/or ignore) the inequalities inherent to the private market approach in HAP and the severe negative impacts on families’ mental health from market rejection and the ‘failure’ to secure HAP accommodation. Furthermore policymakers mistakenly believed that HAP works because individuals are ‘more motivated’ to find housing than a local authority official: “if you really need somewhere to live you will be highly motivated to find somewhere…and you will keep putting in effort until you do. The local authority official behind a desk is not as motivated” (policy maker). In contrast to the normative value-based assumptions prescribed by state officials, the CA values a plurality of lifestyles. The assumption that low income, socially excluded, families and lone parents can self-secure accommodation in

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the private rental sector places the responsibility of housing on to the homeless family and assumes that their success in achieving this is down to their individual level of motivation (that is, the more motivated will access housing more quickly). HAP, as a form of marketised social housing therefore exposes the most vulnerable families to market failure and makes them feel responsible for that market failure. Using a capabilities framework we can see that the assumptions and values within current housing policy ignores issues such as the resources, conversion factors and agency of homeless families. We can see that HAP policy exacerbates feelings of stigmatisation and thus reduces personal conversion factors (in particular negative impacts on mental health and self-esteem, and therefore resilience and wellbeing) and the capacity to engage in the searching process required to secure HAP housing in the private market. HAP as an insecure form of housing

Homeless families identified the lack of security of tenure in HAP accommodation as a key concern. HAP leases are the same as other private rental sector leases in Ireland which are not long term and landlords have extensive power to evict tenants relatively easily. Families were fearful of taking up insecure HAP housing because they do not want to put their children at risk of becoming homeless again: “I don’t want to keep moving my daughter around all the time…and then I’m afraid that I will end back up in the homeless services again after my lease is up…I would take HAP if I was guaranteed to be able to stay in the accommodation for a five year lease or whatever, and that I would be guaranteed somewhere else after that lease was up…once it’s not back to the homeless services. I will not keep putting my daughter through.” (Emilia)

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Families identified that having the right to housing for them meant real security of tenure, as they valued the stability that would give their children the chance to develop – feeling secure in their home and to build relationships in school and the wider community. The families’ expressed housing need was for long-term and secure accommodation. However, HAP accommodation does not provide the resource of a home with long-term security of tenure which can enable families to develop networks of support and provide stability for their children. Therefore, it limits families from achieving their valued and basic functionings and so fulfil wider capabilities. A capability lens applied to HAP policy reveals the failure on the part of policymakers to value the issue of security of tenure, which for families is a key resource, particularly given that they have already been traumatised by experiences of housing insecurity. The experience of Family Hubs

The development of Family Hubs as a new form of emergency accommodation is legitimated by policymakers as a positive improvement on the main form of emergency accommodation, commercial hotels. However, we found that the rules and conditions attached to Family Hubs severely affected the freedom and autonomy of families. There were practical restrictions on the capability of the families ‘to live the life one chooses and values’ which limited their agency. The families explained that in the Family Hub their living behaviour was monitored, there were strict curfews, no accommodation of visitors, overnight leave rules, restrictions on movement (a ban on being in others’ bedrooms), and parental rules (including a ban on holding and/ or minding each other’s children), as the parents explain: “I feel my parenting is checked all the time…I got a warning, its feels like an institution instead of a home…

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we don’t need our authority taken away from [us] in front of our children…our parenting is questioned in front of our children…they are taking the parenting role off the parent…when someone speaks down to you like this you feel you are on the bottom.” (Various parents) Conditions in the Hub affected the parents’ personal conversion factors as it limited their capacity to parent effectively and caused downward spirals of wellbeing. The lack of parental autonomy led to negative impacts on family functioning and wellbeing. A parent explains: “When I came here first I was much happier. Spending time here takes something away from you. I’m just fed up (visibly upset, crying)…now I don’t want to talk to people anymore…I just want to be on my own…it’s the system…my child asks me when are we going to live in our own house and have our own toys – I say I don’t know…” (Karina) Sen (1992) prioritised the importance of valued functionings, ‘the be-ings and do-ings that people have reason to value’. These parents most valued function was simply that of being a parent, but the Hub reduced their capability and agency to achieve their valued functioning – to be a parent and to do parenting. We find this type of institutional approach can lead to a form of ‘therapeutic incarceration’ (Gerstal et al, 1996). In this case of emergency homeless accommodation, the Family Hubs, rather than being a capability enhancing social policy it is a constraining social conversion factor (as a form of state institutional support). Parents described how rules systematically undermined their role and capacity to parent, and how this was factor in depression and low esteem. Parents reported feeling ‘demeaned’ and ‘spoken down to’, described feeling ‘like a child’, ‘in school’ and ‘in prison’. This had consequences for physical

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and mental health leading to increased use of anti-depressants and other prescription medications. A peer researcher reflected on this: “Take Liz, for example, she told us how her little fella goes to bed at 7.30pm…so she has to stay in the room from 7.30 until the child wakes up in the morning…she got a warning because she went and made a cup of tea in the kitchen.” (Peer researcher)

Co-constructed solutions

Through PAHRCA we engaged the homeless families in a process of co-development of policy alternatives that could better fulfil their capabilities and right to housing than the HAP and Family Hubs. We combined our social policy knowledge and the families’ experiential knowledge to co-construct new knowledge. The families were critical of housing policy that increased investment on building Family Hubs and the HAP scheme yet invested inadequately in building new local authority provided social housing. They believed that there was a bias on the part of government against social housing – “because they see that’s where all the social problems come from”, but also that governments pursued policies that benefited “their landlord and developer friends”. They argued that the significant number of vacant buildings – particularly vacant local authority houses (that they saw in their neighbourhoods) – should be renovated to house homeless families. Co-developed policy alternatives included the proposal that government embark on an emergency social housing building programme and shift policy from providing insecure HAP accommodation to permanently secure ‘traditional’ social housing via local authorities. There were proposals for legislative measures to improve security of tenure for tenants

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in the private rental sector, specific longer-term secure leases for homeless families in HAP accommodation, and a reduced ability of landlords to evict tenants. It was also proposed that local authorities be legally obliged to source HAP accommodation for homeless families and implement the right to housing. We proposed that emergency accommodation should promote the wellbeing and autonomy of homeless families and that there be regulatory and legislative safeguards including maximum limits on the length of time a family is left residing in a Family Hub. Recommendations were also made for standards and inspection regimes for emergency accommodation, and a ‘sunset’ clause, a legal timeframe for closing Hubs to avoid the long-term institutionalisation of families. Action and agency: empowering the voice of the vulnerable within social policy The key ‘action’ to empower vulnerable group participants and enhance their agency was the organisation of a ‘dialogue’ between the homeless families and policy stakeholders with different forms of political influence. The dialogue was held in June 2017 with two senior local authority officials, a housing spokesperson of the main opposition party in the national parliament and the Chief Commissioner of the IHREC. The method of dialogue involved creating a safe space to explore difference and co-create change, enabling deep learning and listening. The focus was on the sharing of different types of knowledge: experiential, policy and expert. The dialogue demonstrated how the families had benefited from the PAHRCA process in terms of enhanced agency as they had gained a deeper understanding of housing policy, the human right to housing and the capacity to articulate their experience in terms of the impacts of policy on their wellbeing and housing rights. At the dialogue families effectively communicated key issues and asserted how they felt to policymakers, while all

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participants listened and engaged respectfully. Policymakers reflected that this dialogue was a powerful and unique approach which gave them new insights informing policy development and practice. The families felt empowered through the dialogue process. One mother explained: “At the dialogue I felt like they listened to us – that they had seen a different side of it – you could see it in their faces. They probably had been thinking before it that we are people just trying to get a free house” (Amy). The knowledge generated by the research found an institutional home when the IHREC published a report that included some of the co-developed policy proposals relating to security of tenure in HAP and the Family Hub model (IHREC, 2017). Agency was also visible in a comprehensive policy brief (Hearne and Murphy, 2017) which brought the voices of the families and newly co-constructed knowledge and policy recommendations into the public sphere to influence both policy and practice. This resulted in national media coverage, discussion of the report in the national parliament, and a subsequent invitation to discuss the findings with the parliamentary committee on housing in September 2017. Research findings were also discussed at NGOorganised housing seminars and conferences (at some of which the peer researchers co-presented and research participants attended). The families welcomed the research entering the public domain and felt it accurately portrayed their views and experiences. In post research follow-up, the families reported that the approach of the service provider in the Family Hub had improved following the research, with the families given more voice, and that the research had played a role in facilitating this. However, they maintained that being in this emergency accommodation was still a “devastating situation”. One participant also went on to engage in public advocacy in relation to homelessness, partaking in a documentary on homeless families’ experiences and appearing on national media. Limited policy change was evident in the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive’s

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commitment to undertake assessments of the Family Hubs and ensure that they followed appropriate guidelines, and in the Government’s 2018 policy shift to prioritise the building of social housing over the use of HAP (although HAP continues to be expanded). The policy brief continues to be used as a point of social and political advocacy. It is important to highlight that undertaking this participative research was challenging for both researchers and the families. Families were in a traumatic time of their lives and researchers had to draw on facilitative and community engagement experience to maintain trust and engagement. However, through it we clearly see Hvinden and Halvorsen (2018: 871) active agency, and we encountered the ‘dynamic complex of persons’ self-reflection, evaluation of their own experience and observation of the world around them.’ Toward a capability and rights-informed participatory social policy

Our findings provide important reflections for policy-orientated research. In particular, we found that each of the core components of the PAHRCA methodological framework, that is, the CA, the human rights approach, the participatory approach and the action research aspect, contributed to enhancing the agency of the vulnerable group participants. This agency-enhancing aspect of PAHRCA was central to the achievements and impact of the research. It was done through a participatory process of co‑producing new knowledge, co-developing capabilityenhancing policy alternatives and undertaking action to influence policy in the form of a dialogue with policymakers and practitioners and publishing a policy brief. First, the participative component of PAHRCA played a central role in co-producing this new knowledge and enhancing the agency of this vulnerable group. It enabled a deep engagement with the families, which facilitated the researchers to generate a more enriched understanding of their experience.

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It also offered participants the opportunity to be educated on their right to housing. The participation and empowerment of homeless families revealed the rich tapestry of the various ways in which their capabilities and rights were affected by new forms of housing policy. Such ‘knowledge’ was not previously understood, nor considered important, by policymakers. Second, the capabilities framework offered a focus on the reality of their experience and wellbeing in relation to their housing situation and an opportunity to define the aspects of housing policy that they have reason to value. This engaged the families with a sense of purpose about an issue they could relate to, and was relevant to their daily reality, including issues of competition and exclusion from the market, fears relating to lack of security of tenure of private rental housing and the damaging experience of daily life in Family Hubs. The research findings reflected their realities while also enhancing their capacity to understand their own challenges and the wider policy context. Third, PAHRCA enhanced the individual and collective agency of this vulnerable group of homeless families by raising their capacity to aspire (Bonvin and Laruffa, 2017). The process educated and empowered families to think through their experiences in a rights and capability framework. It enabled them to co-construct an understanding and self-belief that they had rights and entitlements to better housing conditions, and that government was obliged to support them to achieve their capabilities. The process enabled them to express their reality in their own voice and to self-advocate, while drawing on policy, political language and context to enable a broader communication of their concerns and what they valued through action. Indeed, it was the explicit agency aim of PAHRCA that attracted the families to the research and motivated them to continue to engage in the process. The research contributed to the voices, concerns and experiences of this socially excluded group of homeless, lone

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parent families being taken seriously within the Irish national housing domain. This new co-created knowledge now exists in the public sphere as a benchmark for assessing policy into the future. It continues to be drawn on and referred to within national media and parliamentary debates on the housing and homelessness crisis by various political actors, NGOs and civil society campaigns. In this way, it contributes to enhancing the collective agency of actors (both homeless and housing activists) engaged in attempting to develop a social justice enhancing housing policy. This is consistent with what Drèze and Sen (2002: 29) described as ways of overcoming voicelessness within CAs, including the ‘self-assertion of the underprivileged through political organisation’ and enabling ‘solidarity with the underprivileged on the part of other members of the society, whose interests and commitments are broadly linked, and who are often better placed to advance the cause of the disadvantaged by virtue of their own privileges’. Our experience shows the impact of both enhancing the agency of the vulnerable group through various forms of ‘self-assertion’, and the facilitation of ‘solidarity’ with the vulnerable group through the dialogue process. Maximising discussion in the public and political sphere also engendered a wider societal solidarity with the homeless families. This research might then be considered a modest contribution towards the transformation of Irish social policy towards enhancing the rights and capabilities of the ‘voiceless’. Achieving transformation and a rebalancing of power requires the construction of societal solidarity with the underprivileged, a key part of which is to enhance the capacity of the underprivileged to undertake self-assertion. We found that a PAHRCA approach that draws on capability and rights approaches can play a role in this. The dialogical approach within this process was consistent with Sen’s urging to ‘enable those who are in the institutions to be exposed to others, to develop affiliation with them – and hope these frail bonds of relationship

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would urge the persons to reflect on their institutions from within’ (Alkire, 2008: 9). Furthermore, we emphasise, in line with Burchardt and Vizard (2011) and Alkire (2008), how participation of the disadvantaged in the development and definition of capabilities and rights in social policy from initial design stage is preferable to just relying on policy and academic research or experts’ definitions to define and develop policies. Rather than simply being ‘beneficiaries’ of social policy, citizens should become co-authors of social policy interventions, establishing their goals and instruments. Conclusion Social policy aims to change human behaviour and/or improve life quality and wellbeing (see Chapter One, this volume). Yet our research shows the disconnect between normative reference points of policymakers and the normative values of people intended to benefit from policy (see also Chapter Six, this volume). In bringing together various strands of capabilities and rights theory with a participative action and policy engaged framework, this chapter provides an account of their practical operationalisation in the context of social investment and marketisation in housing and homelessness. The research demonstrates how housing is an essential prerequisite in enabling a person to exercise choices in almost every area of life required to maximise personal and family wellbeing, in all types of valued family functioning, and what we consider everyday wellbeing. Policies resulted in a reduction in the capabilities (reducing their conversion factors and resources) and capacity of homeless families and removed a key institutional social conversion factor (and resource) – traditional social housing – that provides a base from which families and individuals can live a life they value. Applying the CA as an evaluative framework in Irish housing policy would, in the instance of HAP, lead to a reappraisal of this policy because it highlights the insufficient attention paid

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to the impact on the agency of homeless families and their capabilities to live a life they have reason to value. Policymakers consider HAP an acceptable policy even though it does not provide security of tenure, a capability that the homeless families prioritise of utmost value to enable them to lead a life where they can achieve stability for their children. In a similar vein, the new form of emergency accommodation, Family Hubs, was found to profoundly damage the wellbeing of families, removing the ability to make choices they value in relation to parenting their children and family life. Yet policymakers gave little consideration to how this emergency accommodation would have an impact on the capabilities of families. A capabilities framework would help policymakers to better understand the impact of new housing policies on wellbeing. What is important, though, is that our research shows that end users need to be involved in defining what are their valued functionings and what is valuable to them, for example, security of tenure. The families benefited from the research process, finding it useful to contextualise their reality within housing policy and the human right to housing and, through it, building capability for individual and collective agency in a dialogical forum and the wider public sphere. We show how to actively include affected vulnerable groups directly in the policymaking process through facilitating an equal and empowered, resourced form of engagement. The findings of this research point to the necessity and value of involving the user perspective centrally in the development, and assessment, of social policy (see Chapter Six, this volume). Policy, therefore, should be seen as more than a means, but a framework which requires intervention from those directly affected (from ‘below’) to ensure that it works in practice, and is thus more likely to achieve social justice outcomes. We would argue, however, that for it to become a powerful tool for empowering vulnerable groups in a meaningful way, it

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is necessary to move forward from a CA, which is too expert and institutionally oriented and thus removed from the reality and viewpoints of those suffering inequality, and insufficiently critical of the role of the state and policy in contributing to social injustice. Crucially, to enhance the potential contribution of the CA in social policy there is a requirement to operationalise the CA towards capabilities theories, through processes which draw on complementary frameworks that can enhance these theories towards a greater incorporation of the perspectives and involvement of the end-users. We found the theory and practice of human rights and participatory action approaches useful complementary concepts in this regard. Ultimately, we believe that the key to operationalising the CA is to enable participation of the vulnerable themselves in a process of co-production and self-assertion of new knowledge so that social policy is inclusive of the end-user perspective. Social transformation also requires solidarity and public actions that listen to and act on this new social policy knowledge. Note 1

This research was part of the H2020 Re-InVest project which developed PAHRCA, and has been applied in 13 research sites across 12 EU member states to investigate the social damage of the crisis and social investment with a special focus on vulnerable groups.

References Alkire, S (2008) ‘Choosing dimensions: The capability approach and multidimensional poverty’, in N Kakwani and J Silber (eds) The Many Dimensions of Poverty, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 89–119, http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/8862/. Bonvin, J-M and Laruffa, F (2017) Towards a Normative Framework for Welfare Reform Based on the Capability and Human Rights Approaches (Re-InVEST Working Paper Series D4.1). Switzerland: UNIGE/ Leuven: Re-InVEST.

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Burchardt, T and Vizard, P (2011) ‘“Operationalizing” the capability approach as a basis for equality and human rights monitoring in twenty-first-century Britain’, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 12(1), 91–119. Dobson, R (2011) ‘Conditionality and homelessness services’, Social Policy and Society 10(4), 547–557. Drèze, J and Sen, A (2002) India: Development and Participation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Farrugia, D and Gerrard, J (2016) ‘Academic knowledge and contemporary poverty: The politics of homelessness research’, Sociology 50(2), 267–284. Gerstel, N, Cynthia, J, Bogard, JF et  al (1996) ‘The therapeutic incarceration of homeless families’, Social Service Review 70(4), 543–572. Godinot, X and Wodon, Q (2006) Participatory Approaches to Attacking Extreme Poverty: Cases Studies Led by the International Movement ATD Fourth World, Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Hearne, R (2017) A Home or a Wealth Generator? Inequality, Financialization and the Irish Housing Crisis, Dublin: Think Tank for Action on Social Change. Hearne, R and Murphy, MP (2017) Investing in the Right to a Home, Houses HAP and Hubs (research report), Maynooth: Maynooth University. Hvinden, B and Halvorsen, R (2018) ‘Mediating agency and structure in sociology: What role for conversion factors?’, Critical Sociology 44(6), 865–881. IHREC (Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission) (2017) The Provision of Emergency Accommodation to Families Experiencing Homelessness, Dublin: IHREC. Murphy, MP and Hearne, R (2016) ‘A participatory capability and human rights based methodological toolkit’, Brussels: Re-InVest. Nussbaum, MC (2003) ‘Capabilities as fundamental entitlements: Sen and global justice’, Feminist Economics 9(2–3), 33–59.

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Nussbaum, MC (2011) ‘Capabilities, entitlements, r ights: Supplementation and critique’, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities: A Multi-Disciplinary Journal for People-Centered Development 12(1), 23–37. Sen, A (1992) Inequality Reexamined, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sen, AK (2002) Rationality and Freedom, London: Belknap Press. Sen, AK (2005) ‘Human rights and capabilities’, Journal of Human Development 6(2), 151–166. Vizard, P (2006) Poverty and Human Rights: Sen’s Capability Perspective Examined, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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EIGHT From the capability approach to capability-based social policy

Mara A. Yerkes, Jana Javornik, Erik Jansen and Anna Kurowska

Introduction Social policy as a multi-layered research field spans numerous domains, each with their inherent complexities and approaches. Taking policy domains as an evaluative entry point, social policy research seeks to understand their development, processes, aims, implementation and impact from multiple perspectives and actors, including policymakers, professionals and practitioners and policy recipients. The capability approach (CA) offers a promising way forward in understanding these multiple perspectives as demonstrated by the diverse chapters in this volume. We break systematically from the established scholarship in our aim to offer new frameworks for analysing and formulating policies. We propose the use of a CA to social policy (see Chapter One), further specified into capability

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theories (Robeyns, 2017), as illustrated by the conceptual and methodological developments in this volume. While the combined use of a CA to social policy and domain-specific capabilities theories provides evaluative space for understanding social policy development, implementation and effects, it leaves unanswered a crucial question: to what extent can social policies at a collective level be developed from a capability perspective? In other words, how do we make the shift from a CA to social policy and capabilities theories, to capability-based social policies? In this final, concluding chapter, we briefly summarise the key arguments of the book to provide a foundation for answering this question. As outlined in Chapter One, key to using the CA in social policy research is first and foremost to recognise social policy primarily as a resource (means) that can enhance the capabilities of individuals to live the life they have reason to value. If social policy is understood to be an interdependent set of measures and instruments aiming to change human behaviour and/or improve quality of life and wellbeing, then seeing policy as a means entails evaluating this set of resources in relation to how individuals can use them within their ecological, economic and social spaces (that is, diversified contexts). As argued in Chapter One, social policy is not value-neutral, and policies must be understood within their diverse, historical and political contexts (Ginsburg, 2004) as value-laden and based on culturallyinformed, dominant ideas (Béland, 2005; 2016) of human behaviour. The CA to social policy, as outlined in Chapter One, allows researchers to identify the normative reference points of social policies and to evaluate how policy is intended to help individuals achieve that normative reference point. Two examples were provided in Chapters Two and Three. In the former, Bonvin and Laruffa argued for a shift away from normative reference points of educational policy vis-à-vis social investment that emphasise employability, competitiveness and economic return towards individual autonomy and capability to

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be active citizens. In the latter, de São José, Timonen, Amado and Santos pushed for a re-evaluation of active ageing policy goals in Europe, as investigated using a CA, and ultimately proposed to redesign this policy based on capability principles. A second relevant aspect to be considered when applying the CA to social policy is understanding the interdependencies of policies and individual and wider ecological, economical and societal contexts. These interdependencies have been the focus of Chapters Four and Five, where knowledge specific to the family policy domain is used to inform capability theories applications for evaluating parental leave. Both chapters looked more closely at conversion factors, or the ways in which varying personal characteristics, social structures and institutional and socio-economic contexts shape individuals’ ability/inability to turn a collective resource like parental leave policy into individual achievements of valued functionings, that is, doings and beings that people have reason to value (see Chapter One). Such specification of capabilities theories (Robeyns, 2017) allows for a more nuanced analysis of social policy and its effects. For example, in Chapter Four, Javornik and Oliver are able to show how external scrutiny is a pivotal institutional factor for all eligible parents to achieve valued functionings – that is, to remain in work/share parenting in ways they have reasons to value. Here, the shift to capabilities theories provided the space to recognise and better assess the significance of the wider workplace and socio-legal context in shaping parents’ capability to co-parent under current UK shared parental leave legislation. The interdependency of conversion factors is also the focus of Chapter Five, where Kurowska and Javornik demonstrate how socio-economic conversion factors, such as living standards within and between countries and gender wage gaps together shape families’ capability to achieve valued functionings for mothers to remain in work after having a child, for fathers to care for their child, and for children to be cared for by both parents.

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Chapters Two through to Five provided convincing examples of how to use the CA in social policy research and/or using capabilities theories for this purpose, primarily from a macro and/or meso level. Further understanding of the meso and micro levels was provided by Chapters Six and Seven, which highlighted the importance of policy professionals and practitioners in the implementation of policies as potential resources for capabilities, and the users of social policies in developing individual agency (voice) in realising capabilities. These chapters highlight the need for shifting from a CA to social policy and capabilities theories, to capability-based social policies. As Javornik, Yerkes and Jansen demonstrated in Chapter Six, while professionals and practitioners largely see the usefuleness and subscribe to the underlying ideas of the CA, the absence of a common language and feasibility issues related to multilevel governance and local implementation inhibit the CA from being used to its full potential. Understanding how to make the transformational shift towards capability-based social policy would be useful in this regard. Furthermore, as highlighted by Hearne and Murphy in Chapter Seven, citizens can potentially be empowered to ‘raise their voice’ in the social policy process, contributing to the enhancement of their individual and collective agency. Ultimately, such voice (agentic change) can contribute to a broader capability-based social policy development. Making the translational shift When making the translational shift to capability-based social policy, it is important to note the difference between capability concepts and conceptions of concepts (Rawls, 1971). Whereas a concept can be clear though abstract, it can allow for multiple yet incompatible interpretations, depending on the philosophical stance (Robeyns, 2017, 100; Berlin, 1969). When different conceptions of freedom are embedded in social policies, they may lead to different implementations of social arrangements.

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The Dutch case exemplifies how the absence of clearly specified concepts at the national level (for example, resilience, community) could lead to different local operationalisations of the same concept (Jansen et al, 2017; Duyvendak and Tonkens, 2018). At the same time, a translational shift is needed in terms of the language of the CA and how it is applied, and this is needed across at least three levels of translation. The highest level involves identifying the ultimate aims of social policies and translating these into capability-enabling/enhancing aims. This means recognising that the formulation of policy is aimed at an abstract group of recipients. These recipients do not exist in practice; individual lives are much more complex given varying ecological, economic and societal circumstances. Capability-based social policy can be developed by formulating policies in an open enough way that allows for the process of implementation and delivery to enable real opportunities. At an intermediate level, developing capability-based social policy means providing an account of more specific and contextualised interpretations (for example, what constitutes opportunities in the actual contexts within which the policy operates and which opportunities are real). The lowest level adds specific, ready-to-use tools or instruments available to local actors that are consistent with policy formulations at a higher level. Examples of such tools can be found in the social and care domains in the Netherlands, such as so-called capability screening instruments. Thus, the core of this process is translating abstract concepts into concrete applications suited to the purpose at hand. Operationalisation in such a three-level downward process should leave discretionary freedom for policymakers, professionals and practitioners at each level, while maintaining consistency and sufficient communicative fluency to employ it as a resource at each level. Moreover, it does away with the issue of overly abstract reasoning at more operational levels. Alongside this three-level translational process, developing capability-based social policies requires involving professionals

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and practitioners in deliberative processes, including making choices about policy priorities at multiple levels. This involvement is important to ensure consistent and communicative translation of the CA into policy and practice because of the joint sense-making process involving local stakeholders (as highlighted in Chapter Six), thereby establishing a local support base. When local experts co-direct decision-setting processes, policy measures will be most effective in securing and enhancing people’s capabilities and functionings (Crocker, 2007). Ideally, individuals affected by social policies should be involved as well, to the extent to which this is realistically possible (see Chapter Seven). Finally, the translational shift towards capability-based social policies should ideally entail a systemic shift rather than a shift at the policy level only. This has been suggested by the steps proposed previously, where we state that professionals operating at various levels of abstraction should be engaged in the actual operationalisation of policy. As such, it also involves applying the CA in the professional action of the delivery of social policies on the ground. Such a systemic shift is complex, involving multi-tiered governance structures and stakeholders with various, often diverging, interests (Kazepov, 2010). It requires collaborative learning and innovation that instigates transformational processes across networks (Kooiman et  al, 2015). Moreover, because the CA pertains to human life in all its plurality and diversity, the systemic shift also involves seeing social policy as interdependent (for example, Chapter Four, this volume). Thus, the translation of CA to capability-based social policy is a joint learning process. We might go further and say that it is a process of democratic change, as suggested in Chapter Two (this volume). In this process, the subject of democratic change is formed by the aggregation of aligned deliberation, articulation, operationalisation and collective action. In short, in our view the translational shift should be a learning process in which policies at different stages are based

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on the CA to social policy, from the national to the local and street levels. Concluding remarks This book aimed to outline the key challenges and issues related to interpreting basic concepts of the CA in a social policy context and to offer a way forward in addressing these issues as they apply specifically to social policy research and practice. In doing so, the book has shown some of the promises and challenges of the capabilities perspective in social policy research and practice. Naturally, there are a number of limitations to the approach proposed here. First, we have focused on a number of key examples in varying social policy fields (education, active ageing, housing and family policy) but are unable to provide a comprehensive account of numerous other social policy fields in which the capabilities approach has been used or could potentially be used. Additionally, our focus here is on social policy in the European context. As such, the normative reference points of social policies are qualitatively different to social policies developed and implemented in developing countries, for example. For this reason, among others, we have chosen to focus on Sen’s approach to capabilities. This is a crucial choice, one which informs our arguments around the need for a broad, underspecified CA to social policy, where social policy is primarily a means to capabilities for achieving a wide range of functionings being the object of democratic deliberation. Despite these limitations, this book offers a foundation for social policy research and practice in the coming decades. Given the rich but complex literature from capabilities scholars across multiple disciplines, including among others, economics, human development studies, anthropology, social sciences, philosophy and law, our approach provides social policy scholars and professionals with an anchor in the myriad of capability concepts, measurements and applications. Using this framework as a

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starting point, we can identify a number of important avenues for further research. These include policy processes and how to involve multiple stakeholders, how to include the voice of marginalised groups, and, last but not least, how to encourage and enrich multi- and interdisciplinary research and conceptual and methodological developments in social policy research that recognise the need for a wider and more nuanced analysis of national and subnational contexts. We also suggest new ways to extend the focus in cross-national comparative research. While we maintain the state as an important policy actor – as reflected by the use of social policies as the entry point of our book – we break from established social policy research in our aim to offer a new analytical framework for evaluating a wider set of policies, countries, actors and processes. The book adopted a range of methodologies to offer conceptual and methodological avenues and how these fit to core theories in social policy literature. The methods, geographies and social policy domains covered in this book offer scope for enriched reflections on broader themes such as capability, freedoms and conversion factors through the diversity of policy effects across social groups of recipients, the relationships between attitudes and institutions, and the importance of complex and context-specific causal processes in shaping policy effects. These sharpen the analytical focus of multitiered polities; provide new perspectives on policy processes; and highlight empirical challenges for policy analysis, in terms of data availability, data quality and methodological innovations. References Béland, D (2005) ‘Ideas and social policy: An institutionalist perspective’, Social Policy and Administration 39(1), 1–18. Béland, D (2016) ‘Ideas and institutions in social policy research’, Social Policy and Administration 50(6), 734–750. Berlin, I (1969) ‘Two concepts of liberty’, in I. Berlin, Four essays on liberty, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 118–172.

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Crocker, DA (2007) ‘Deliberative participation in local development’, Journal of Human Development, 8(3), 431–455. Duyvendak, JW and Tonkens, E (2018) ‘De beloften van nabijheid en de verhuiselijking van de zorg’ [‘The promises of nearness and the domestication of care’], in F Bredewold, JW Duyvendak, T Kampen, E Tonkens and L Verplanke (eds) De verhuizing van de verzorgingsstaat [Moving the welfare state], Amsterdam: Van Gennep, pp 7–26. Ginsburg, N (2004) ‘Structured diversity: A framework for critically comparing welfare states?’, in P Kennett (ed) A Handbook of Comparative Social Policy, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp 201–216. Jansen, E, Sprinkhuizen, A, Veldboer, L, Verharen, L and De Waal, V (eds) (2017) Kwesties en keuzes in wijkgericht werken [Questions and choices in neighborhood-based practice]. Utrecht: Werkplaatsen Sociaal Domein. Kazepov, Y (ed) (2010) Rescaling Social Policies: Towards Multilevel Governance in Europe, Abingdon: Routledge. Kooiman, A, Wilken, JP, Stam, M, et al (2015) Leren transformeren: hoe faciliteer je praktijkinnovatie in tijden van transitie [Learning to transform: how to facilitate practice innovation in times of transition]. Utrecht: Movisie. Nussbaum, MC (2011) Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach, Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Robeyns, I (2017) Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.

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Index

A active ageing 13, 41, 43–49, 51–53, 56, 149 Active Ageing Index 43–44, 45, 48–49 European policy on 42–49, 56 neoliberalism and European policy on 45, 49 social investment and European policy on 45, 49 successful ageing 45, 49, 56 Theory of Model Ageing 48 adaptive preferences 24, 27, 32 agency 2–8, 14, 25, 53–56, 86, 112–119, 121–128, 150 active / situated 11 capabilities 25 collective 14, 127–128, 140–141, 150 families’ 132–135, 137–141 political 25 Appadurai, Arjun 27, 33 autonomy 3–4, 13, 21, 31, 134–137, 148

definition of 1–2, 4–5, 5–7 language 119–121, 149, 150 set 7, 13, 51–53, 62–64, 77–79  capability approach to overcome limitations of European active ageing policy 50–54 to social policy 5–14, 63–64, 70, 77, 108, 123, 148–153 to legal analysis 63 vs. capabilities theories 5, 12–14, 78, 148–150 capability framework for ageing 42, 54–56 care 6–13, 25, 43–48, 56, 84–87, 116, 149 caregivers/carers 6, 87–88, 112, 116  gendered 61–62, 65 informal 112 childcare 10, 71–77, 83, 86, 90–99 paid work and 61, 70, 84, 87–90, 96 services 48 social 151 children 9, 20, 65, 78, 83, 112–116, 125–135 citizenship 10, 20 active 21, 35

C capability/capabilities -based social policy 118, 123, 150–151

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to act/to voice one’s aspirations/ to choose 7, 27, 56 to lead a good life 26 functional literacy 11 functionings 3, 5–7, 50–57, 152–153 achieved 6, 12 and active ageing 52 and housing 127, 131, 134 observed 87–88, 89 valued 4, 6, 10, 12–13, 149 and active ageing 51, 52, 54, 56 and health 6, 19 and housing 126, 135, 142–143, 149 and parental leave 84, 87–88, 89, 90, 100–101 and parenting 126, 135, 143 and shared parenting 70, 72, 73, 77, 78

democratic 20–21, 32–33, 35 community 11, 25, 52–55, 113, 122, 134, 139  conversion factors 3–11, 113–115, 149–154 and active ageing 50–56, 63 and housing 127–135, 142 and parental leave 84–90, 100 and shared parenting 74–79

D discrimination 74–76, 132 democracy 24–28, 33, 35 

E economic growth 19–21, 23, 26 education policy 2, 12, 19–35, 148–149 employability 2, 12, 20–25, 28–35, 45–49, 148 employers 22, 62, 71–79, 85, 116, 120  Equality Act  74–75 

G gender 7, 10, 14, 46, 47, 49 bias 85 equality 10, 63–64,77–83, 92–96, 108–110, 128  norms 71, 77, 97 inequality 61–62, 73, 79, 84–85, 100  opportunity structures see opportunity structures policy 61–62 roles 79 wage gap 86, 92, 149 government 5, 45–50, 62–65, 90, 108, 136–140 

F Family Hubs 126–127, 129, 134–136,139–140, 143 family policy 78, 88, 108, 149, 153  freedom as a (CA) concept 5–6, 11, 150, 154 as a human right 127   for policymakers 151 in relation to housing 111, 134 the role of 119 of a child/from a child’s perspective 116 of older people 52, 54 real 27, 29, 70 to achieve a valued outcome/lead a valuable life 4–7, 10, 20–29, 35, 50, 109, 117

H happiness 24, 27, 50, 52 health access to 44

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distributive 11 social 3, 33, 127, 141, 143–144

healthcare 41, 49 as a result of education 26 mental 132–133, 136 problems 44, 55–56 housing policy 14, 126, 129, 133, 136 commercial hotels 125–126, 134 emergency accommodation 125–129, 134, 137–138, 143 housing 111, 113, 115 Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) 126–127, 129–134, 136–139, 142–143 homelessness 125–126, 138, 141, 142 homeless families 14, 125–133, 136–138, 140–143 social 115, 125–126, 129–130, 132–133, 136–139, 142 human capital 19, 21,25–29  human rights 14, 125–128,139,144

K knowledge-based economy 21,30

L labour market 20–21, 25–26, 28–30, 32–35 language 14, 22, 119–123, 140, 150–151 foreign 31, 32, 55 law 77, 79, 91, 112  anti-discrimination 10, 64, 74, 76, 79  case 64, 74–78  leave policy adoption leave 64, 65 maternity leave 64–66, 70, 72, 75, 78, 91, 97  benefit/pay 62, 65, 66, 72, 73, 76, 77  parental leave 2, 10–14, 61– 63,65,67–69, 149 benefit/pay 86–87, 92, 97, 100, 102 paternity leave 64, 65, 66–7, 75  benefit/pay 67 shared parental leave 62, 63, 65, 67–8, 70, 72, 149  legal rights 63, 64, 70, 73, 112 litigation 13, 74, 76, 78, 79  life course 45–47, 55 local 14, 95–97, 108–109, 116–123, 126–137, 150–153

I inequalities age 56–57 and social policies 10, 51, 53, 127, 132 gender see gender in agency/in capability sets 6–7, 13, 25 income/class 84, 86, 100  in conversion factors 131 in outcomes 6 parents’ opportunity sets 63, 77, 85, 86, 90 social/socio-economic/political 12, 25, 49, 55, 56 sources of  88

M means 2–3, 5–13, 23, 122, 148, 153 and active ageing 50, 51, 54, 55 and education 20, 26, 28 and housing 143

J justice 52, 128 access to 63

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Q

and parental leave 84, 88–90 and shared parenting 70–73, 76 social policy as see social policy

quality of life 9, 19, 23–24, 42–44, 54, 128, 148

N

R

Nussbaum, Martha 2–5

Robeyns, Ingrid 2–3, 12–14, 25–26, 63, 78, 117–120, 148–150

O

S

opportunity structure(s) active ageing as  43, 54 created by policies  84 parental leave as 85, 87, 88– 90, 96, 101 

security of tenure 133–134, 136, 138, 140, 143 Sen, Amartya 2–6, 23–26, 50–53, 127, 135, 141, 153 social change 25, 33, 112 social investment and education policy 30–34, 148 and ageing policy 45, 49 and homelessness 125–130, 142, 144 paradigm 1, 9, 12, 19–20, 45, 49 critique 20–25, 30–34 social justice  3, 33, 126, 141, 143 social networks 49, 130  social policy access 6, 10–12, 87, 108 as conversion factor 10, 11, 50 as means 8–10, 13, 50–56, 72–77, 87–88, 143, 148–153 capability-based 148, 150–152 delivery 108, 122–123, 151–152 design 12–13, 64, 70–78, 108, 115–127, 142–149 education policy see education policy family policy see family policy housing policy see housing policy implementation 14, 62, 78, 108–112, 117–123, 147–151 indicators 44, 88, 90–96, 101, 121 interdependencies 11–12, 13, 148–149, 152

P parenting as a valued functioning see functionings arrangement/practices 63–65 and care responsibilities 62 inequality in 73 norm of/role/proper/ orthodoxies/rhetoric 77, 85, 89, 90, 101, 134, 135 shared/sharing 61–65, 70–73, 76–79, 92, 96, 149 time off for 83 parents 9, 13, 117, 118, 149  adoptive 64 heterosexual 64, 72 lone 64, 126, 129, 132 same-sex 64, 73 participatory approach 127–129, 139 processes 127–128 Participatory Action Human Rights and Capability Approach (PAHRCA) 126–128, 136–137, 139–141, 144 poverty 42, 56, 117  public policy 52, 54, 85, 108

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parental leave see leave policy participatory 54, 116, 139–142 practice 3, 8–14, 42, 51–57, 107, 119–123, 138–143, 150–152 practitioner(s) 14, 57, 107–109, 118–123, 139, 147–152 social protection 20,34, 35, 42, 46  social work 109, 112  social workers 108, 109, 112, 113 

T tribunal 74–76 

W welfare reform 19, 35 welfare state regime 84–85 wellbeing as policy goal/public value 9, 13, 20–21, 24, 34, 50–52, 54, 75, 115, 126 child’s 63, 83 collective 6 families’ 129, 131–140, 142–143, 148 individual/individuals’ 8, 44, 46, 118 mental 43–44 older people’s 42, 43, 47, 55 the freedom/opportunity to achieve 4, 50–51, 113 work-family balance 88, 116 workplace 62, 79, 116

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