Financial stability in later life remains a pressing concern in the UK as limited pension contributions leave many individuals financially insecure in retirement. While research has mostly focused on work histories to explain the differences, other structural, cultural, and personal factors have received less attention. Using a lifecourse and capabilities approaches, the aim of this article was to explore factors that influence financial planning for later life. The study employed a photovoice methodology with sixteen participants (forty-five-plus years) from Hampshire, England. The study offers novel insights into factors that either positively or negatively affect financial resilience in later life or the ability to plan for it (financial mindsets and behaviours; access to financial knowledge and guidance; prioritising immediate needs in the cost of living crisis; imagining retirement and preparing financially). The study emphasises the importance of de-homogenising individuals’ experiences and highlights the need for lifelong financial education.

Children’s growth extends beyond gains in height and weight: it includes non-physical achievements. This paper reviews the research conducted by the International Union for Nutritional Sciences Task Force ‘Towards a Multidimensional Approach to Child Growth’, which developed a Multidimensional Index of Child Growth (MICG) framed within a capability- and human-rights- based conceptualisation of child growth across interconnected dimensions, including physical health, love and care, mental wellbeing, participation, autonomy, mobility, and safety. Qualitative research in Bangladesh and southeastern Tanzania informed the operationalisation of the MICG, showing that caregivers understand child growth as a multidimensional capability set distributed across children, caregivers, and households. Quantitatively, we prototyped the MICG using Young Lives Survey data from Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. The MICG reveals patterns of deprivation not captured by anthropometric indicators alone, such as compounded shortfalls in education, mobility, and mental wellbeing among rural girls in Peru, despite similar physical growth profiles. Regression and quantile analyses indicate that community participation in the design of WASH programmes is associated with higher multidimensional achievements, particularly among the most deprived children. To bridge observed achievements and unrealised potential, we extend the MICG using a Bayesian stochastic-frontier approach to estimate context-specific capability distributions and identify children at risk of being left behind. Finally, we propose a spiderweb growth chart for monitoring multidimensional child growth, complementing WHO anthropometric charts. Overall, the MICG offers an equity-sensitive tool for evaluating nutrition interventions, strengthening child growth surveillance, and advancing the Sustainable Development Goal commitment to leave no child behind.

Markets are widely recognized as sources of material wealth. There is, however, a widely expressed concern that the relationship between markets and human capital is an exploitative one, and the relationship between markets and human flourishing (beyond simply material well-being) is a negative one. We argue, however, that human capital and human flourishing depend on markets in ways that are underappreciated. This essay highlights the positive relationships between markets, human capital, and human flourishing. We first highlight the positive ways that markets foster human capital investments and development and then describe the various ways that markets promote human flourishing. Finally, we introduce Amartya Sen’s capability approach as a plausible and compelling evaluative framework for assessing the moral desirability of certain social arrangements and suggest that markets (on Sen’s terms) are morally desirable social arrangements because they promote human capital development and human flourishing.

The article advances debates on just transition by addressing both conceptual and practical dimensions of justice and development. It proposes an integrated evaluative framework that bridges justice and development perspectives, which are often treated separately in the literature. – Drawing on the capability approach, the framework links normative evaluation with participatory co-production, thereby supporting the design of more transformative just transition policies. Based on an extensive review of the literature, the article identifies seven dimensions of a comprehensive conception of social-ecological justice – distributive, epistemic, restorative, planetary, intergenerational, ecological, and procedural – and distinguish two ideal types of development – growth-driven development and social-ecological development. We argue that the extent to which the dimensions of justice are realised, both in number and degree, determines the scope and depth of shifts from growth-driven to social-ecological development and thereby shapes the transformative potential of just transition policies. The article applies this framework empirically through an evaluation of the International Labour Organisation’s approach to just transition. By grounding the analysis in a capability-based conception of justice and development, our framework positions co-production as central to processes of transformation that seek to be just. As part of this co-production process, the article calls for a more engaged and ethically grounded scholarship that contributes actively to the collective pursuit of just and sustainable futures.

Göran Therborn’s recent book The Killing Fields of Inequality is an opportunity for political scientists to reconnect with a thematic that has for long been the pre-occupation of sociologists: inequality. The killing fields to which Therborn refers in the title of his book are inequalities of wealth, health, education, dignity, and so on. These inequalities are killing fields because they result in millions of premature deaths every year, not just in the Third World, but also in North America and Europe. And even when people survive inequality, their lives are limited by the inequalities they face. In The Killing Fields, Therborn examines the different ‘fields’ of inequality, examining the different ways in which inequality works, for instance through what he terms ‘distanciation’, and he identifies the critical battlefields on which the struggle against inequality has to take place. In their reviews of Therborn’s book, Walden Bello, Joohee Lee and Shujiro Yazawa take a critical look at the different aspects of Therborn’s argument, including the role of the middle classes, the concept of distanciation and Therborn’s use of Amartya Sen’s capability approach.

We examine how social and solidarity economy organizations (SSEOs) generate value for female participants and their community. Our theoretical framework pairs a social utility framework with the capability approach, integrating the perspective of feminist economists to capture value of various types. SSEOs can adopt dimensions of social utility in their activities, including solidarity, identity, sustainable economic development, citizenship, and self-governance. Our study connects these dimensions with value, framed by the capability approach. Findings rely on interviews with participants of Projeto ELAS, a program that promotes socio-productive inclusion of low-income mothers. Participants strengthened their ability to aspire, engage with their community, persevere, feel self-efficacious, and be financially sustained through a process of social interaction, positive identity, and financial growth. Our findings highlight the importance of relational processes within SSEOs and open avenues for research that uses a social utility framework to analyze social value and territorial impact by SSEOs.

This article provides a capabilities analysis of the financial behaviour of United Kingdom-based Zimbabwean senders of international remittances to Zimbabwe. It elaborates an expanded analytical framework of financial capability to investigate the effects of remitting on the financial capabilities of the senders of remittances. The data presented draw on the findings of a survey (n = 347) and semi-structured interviews (n = 23) conducted with Zimbabweans in the United Kingdom. The data reveal adverse effects of remitting on the respondents’ personal financial practices in respect of budgeting, saving and preparing for their retirement. It also shows the limits of FinTech services in transferring remittances and provides insights into how personal finance and -related capabilities constitute a social remittance. Overall, discourses on migration and development need to incorporate an expanded financial capabilities perspective to understand better how remittance fields are structured and to contribute to public policy reforms aiming to enhance the efficacy of remittances.

This article reports from an interdisciplinary, archaeological and philosophical research project developing and using an analogue model in archaeological research. With prominent uses outside of archaeology, analogue models can offer a unique participatory perspective to prehistoric processes. As such the paper contributes to recent discussions in this journal and elsewhere on the role of games, play and gamification in archaeological research, teaching and cultural heritage. Our analogue model critically discusses cultural-evolution-based models of selected European Neolithic and Bronze Age models and develops a perspective based on the life history and the Capability Approaches. In times of climate and war stress, our model can offer a hopeful perspective of the human past, present and future without compromising on scientific insights.

This scoping review synthesizes existing literature on the application of the capability approach (CA) to address the health and well-being of Indigenous Peoples across the globe. Academic and grey literature searches led to the identification of 20 papers for inclusion in the review. Findings reveal a growing interest in applying the CA to Indigenous health and well-being research, highlighting its potential to guide interventions and policies. The included studies indicate that the CA has been applied to individual capabilities such as facilitating access to services and collective capabilities linked to identity and traditional knowledge preservation. A key finding across the reviewed literature is the importance of incorporating Indigenous values into defining programmes and policies aimed at improving Indigenous Peoples’ well-being. The review underscores the varied application of the CA by researchers aligning with the position of either Sen or Nussbaum, leading to contrasting methodological approaches. Results underscore the CA’s potential as a culturally sensitive framework for participatory and locally embedded development of well-being interventions and policies.

Affordable, good quality childcare creates opportunities for many parents to better reconcile work and care or reduces family care to enable other valuable contributions to society. However, childcare studies often overlook parents of children with additional or complex care needs. These parents spend a greater amount of time on caregiving, providing care that goes beyond that of parents of typically developing children. As such, their opportunities beyond caregiving can be limited. Resources, like childcare services, can be crucial in supporting the reconciliation of care with other valued activities in life. This article contributes to the cross-national childcare policy literature by conceptualizing comparative indicators to assess the availability, accessibility, and affordability of childcare policy design for children with additional or complex care needs. It then applies these indicators to a comparison of childcare policy design in England and the Netherlands, providing an operationalization for further empirical analysis.