Stuck in poverty? Stability and change of capabilities and functionings

Abstract

Dynamic poverty research based on quantitative panel studies of income and deprivation showed that for many people, poverty is not a permanent state but rather occurs in phases across the life course. The capability approach (CA) does not reduce poverty to low income but conceptualises it as the lack of genuine opportunities to live a life according to one’s own values. While there is a broad debate about measuring capabilities, a dynamic view is largely missing in the CA, both in theoretical debates and empirical research. With data from a qualitative panel study on 40 income-poor households in Switzerland, this paper analyses how capabilities and functionings change over time. We propose a model of the personal and social factors underlying the dynamics of capabilities with a focus on the role of aspirations and on feedback loops between fertile or corrosive functionings and capability sets. Empirically, two thirds of the study households experienced stability or stagnation of capabilities and functionings, whereas significant capability enhancement, as well as the decline of capabilities during the two-year study period, was rarer but could be discerned retrospectively by means of the biographical interview accounts.