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Wellbeing Over 50: A Capabilities Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Anand

    (Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University)

  • Ranjeeta Thomas
  • Alastair Gray

Abstract

Drawing on the three key relations in the capabilities approach (Sen, 1985) to welfare economics and using panel data from the English Longitudinal Survey of Aging, this paper illustrates how the capabilities approach to welfare economics can be used to understand wellbeing in older age. Specifically, we estimate models of variables related to all three aspects of a person's wellbeing: functionings, happiness and capabilities. Results indicate that the production of activities depends significantly inter alia on education, health and gender; that happiness depends on a wide variety of activities and that there are potentially significant gender inequalities in the constraints facing women compared with men. The paper concludes that the capabilities approach is a workable approach to empirical welfare economics, applicable to older age, and can generate a range of insights about welfare outcomes and their distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Anand & Ranjeeta Thomas & Alastair Gray, 2012. "Wellbeing Over 50: A Capabilities Approach," Open Discussion Papers in Economics 77, The Open University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:opn:wpaper:77
    as

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    capabilities approach; happiness; functionings; constraints; heterogeneity; inequalities; older age;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

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