and also the possible choices not taken? In practice researchers have tended to
measure factors associated with enhancing the ability and freedoms to choose,
such as life expectancy, health and literacy, which can make the approach end
up being rather similar to that of ‘basic needs’ (Laderchi et al., 2003).
The focus on growth as a measure of change can also distort our understand-
ing of crucial issues,making us, for example, value education as human capi-
tal because it contributes to growth by making workers more productive. For
Sen this link is important but limited: education can also enhance the ability of
human beings to lead lives they have reason to value and to enhance the
substantive choices they have. Work by Craig Jeffrey (2012) on education in
small towns in North India shows that parents often value education for their
children in the belief it will give them the social awareness, confidence, and
good manners to be more socially mobile. Female education helps reduce
gender inequalities and fertility (Sen, 1997). Studies show that happiness is
positively related to years of schooling and shows no relation with income
growth (Kahneman and Krueger, 2006). Sen (1982) famously argued that no
democracy with a free press has ever experienced a famine. He later summa-
rized the argument:
[F]amines are extremely easy to prevent if the government tries to prevent
them...[through re-generating the lost purchasing power of hard hit
groups]...and a government in a multi-party democracy with elections and
free media has strong incentives to undertake famine prevention. (Sen,
1999:52)The freedoms approach implies that people are not just a labour force that can
be made more productive with better health and education. People are not just
alternatives to machines in the process of production. People are more than the
means of growth; their well-being is an end goal for a good society.
Most measures of development generate some political controversy. Does,
for example, the ability of young people to choose a marriage partner represent
freedom or does it undermine the social norms, traditions and family cohesion
associated with arranged marriages? An exception is life expectancy. A long
life is universally and strongly valued, is valued for its own sake and is also
necessary to enable people to do those things they have a reason to value. So
life expectancy is not a bad single measure and proxy for capabilities.
Interestingly the two decades that showed the greatest improvement in UK life
expectancy (1911–21 and 1941–51) were those that encompassed the First and
Second World Wars. The explanation for this paradox is that although the total
supply of food per head declined, under-nutrition also declined because of the
more equal sharing of food through rationing systems (Sen, 1998). The use of
capabilities as proxied by life expectancy gives us a very different picture
about patterns of change. Life expectancy data since 1870 on nineteen coun-
tries including India, Brazil and Russia show a pattern of divergence during
1913 and 1950 and strong convergence thereafter. Life expectancy in India was
28 Sources of Growth in the Modern World Economy since 1950