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Paper short abstract:

I will elaborate on the idea that labour can be conceived as a characteristic-providing activity, where characteristics are then transformed into functionings. I will focus on implications for different empirical exercises and illustrate how underlying assumptions can be revealed.

Paper long abstract:

Labour is of utmost importance for human well-being (HWB) and that beyond generating an income. Accordingly, initiatives to measure poverty and wellbeing more comprehensively endorse a work or employment dimension in one form or another. Research efforts on the work-wellbeing link are, however, fragmented across numerous disciplines, including social psychology, economics, or medical sciences. A comprehensive and widely accepted framework which can handle (i) the empirical diversity of labour activities, (ii) each labour activities’ manifold effects on human well-being, (iii) fundamental moral ambiguities and (iv) provides for diverse empirical exercises is, however, still missing.

Based on previous work (Suppa, 2019) I argue that a capability perspective (e.g., Sen 1999, Robeyns 2017) offers a convenient and comprehensive normative framework to explore the role of work in HWB more rigorously. In particular, several scholars recently engage in a discussion about the intrinsic value related to work (e.g., Stephens, 2023). While Sen himself frequently refers to examples like unemployment, child labour, bond labour, or female labour market access to illustrate specific aspects of deprivations (e.g., Sen, 1999), he usually does not enumerate work or labour as a functioning or capability. In this contribution I seek to partially reconcile both views by considering specific empirical exercises and their implicit levels of abstraction.

More specifically, I first elaborate on the previously proposed idea that labour can be conceived as a characteristic-providing activity, where obtained characteristics are then transformed into functioning achievements (Suppa, 2019). I discuss implications for different empirical exercises and showcase how the proposed approach can help to reveal assumptions underlying the indicator construction and, thereby, illustrate the value-added of this perspective.

The considered forms of frequently applied empirical exercises include (i) an in-depth analysis of single functioning for one (or more) jobs, (ii) a comprehensive assessment of one (or more) jobs with respect to the jobholder's HWB (all functionings / capabilities), and (iii) a comprehensive HWB assessment of an entire population (with particular attention to the domain of work).

Subsequently, I will also show how different exercises may entail different levels of abstraction and different degrees of coverage of the population and thus feature different degrees of universality. Finally, I will argue that the principal conceptual framework should be broad and general enough to frame each of these exercises. Only then the advantages of a general framework can take full effect (e.g., the guidance for the operationalisation of measure).

Keywords: Capability Approach, Employment