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Walls of glass. Measuring deprivation in social participation

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Abstract

This paper proposes a measure for deprivation in social participation, an important but so far neglected dimension of human well-being. Operationalisation and empirical implementation of the measure are conceptually guided by the capability approach. Essentially, the paper argues that deprivation in social participation can be convincingly established by drawing on extensive non-participation in customary social activities. In doing so, the present paper synthesizes philosophical considerations, axiomatic research on poverty and deprivation, and previous empirical research on social exclusion and subjective well-being. An application using high-quality German survey data supports the measure’s validity. Specifically, the results suggest, as theoretically expected, that the proposed measure is systematically different from related concepts like material deprivation and income poverty. Moreover, regression techniques reveal deprivation in social participation to reduce life satisfaction substantially, quantitatively similar to unemployment. Finally, the validity of the measure and the question of preference vs. deprivation are discussed.

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Abbreviations

DSP:

Deprivation in social participation

OECD:

Organization of Economic Development

SOEP:

Socio-Economic Panel

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Acknowledgments

This paper benefited from comments and suggestions made by Sabina Alkire, Jaya Krishnakumar, Nathalie Scholl, and participants of the OPHI Lunchtime Seminar in Oxford 2017, the CED seminar in Barcelona 2018, the ECINEQ 2019 conference in Paris, the ISQOLS 2019 conference in Granada the HDCA 2019 conference in London, and two anonymous reviewers. The author also gratefully acknowledges funding by the German Research Foundation (RI 441/6-1); the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities Juan de la Cierva Research Grant Programs (IJCI-2017-33950), the European Research Council (ERC-2014-StG-637768, EQUALIZE project); and the CERCA Programme, Generalitat de Catalunya.

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  1. Centre for Demographic Studies, Autonomous University Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain

    Nicolai Suppa

  2. Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Nicolai Suppa

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Suppa, N. Walls of glass. Measuring deprivation in social participation. J Econ Inequal 19, 385–411 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-020-09469-0

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