Such vulnerability results in widespread and persistent disparities in the capabilities of excluded groups and in the indicators of their well-being. For instance, while indigenous peoples make up about 5 percent of the world’s population, they account for 15 percent of the world’s poor and 33 percent of the world’s extreme rural poor.32 And in most regions political exclusion restricts women’s voice and ability to shape the laws and policies that affect their lives. Only in Cuba and Rwanda does the share of women in parliament match their share in the population.33 These vulnerabilities are not evenly distributed across the life cycle. They are especially acute from infancy to early childhood, when susceptibility to disease, social disruption and lapses in learning and nurturing is greatest. Quality health care and intellectual stimulation early on can set a child on a higher life path to advancing human capabilities. Adolescence presents opportunities and vulnerability in the social and education spheres and in physical and psychological health. The elderly depend on caregivers, accessible public services and often economic assistance. The concept of life cycle or life capabilities captures these key transitions and what they imply for policies to reduce vulnerabilities.
Choices and capabilities Vulnerability reflects threats to choices and capabilities. If human development is about widening choices, human vulnerability stems quintessentially from a restriction of the choices critical to human development—choices for health, education, command over material resources and personal security. Individuals tend to feel more vulnerable when they have few and less certain options. Women who are economically independent tend to be less vulnerable than those who depend on others for sustenance. Similarly, illiterate and unskilled workers are more vulnerable than well educated people because they have fewer work options. Deeply indebted households are likely to be more vulnerable to exploitation and less able to protect themselves in adversity.
Choices depend on capabilities. An individual’s capabilities—all the things a person can do or be—determine the choices a person can make. People are vulnerable when they lack sufficient core capabilities, since this severely restricts their agency and prevents them from doing things they value or coping with threats. Vulnerability is multifaceted and dynamic. An exclusive focus on economic vulnerability, defined narrowly as low and irregular earnings, is not enough. Viewing human vulnerability in the space of capabilities, choices and freedoms makes it possible to analyse the full range of vulnerabilities. Income deprivation is clearly not the only source of vulnerability. A person with high income but no opportunity to participate politically is not poor in the usual sense but may be highly vulnerable to discrimination and neglect. Equally, a well-off person can be vulnerable to violent attack, but having resources can reduce that person’s vulnerability, since richer people can better protect themselves against many adversities. Unemployed people entitled to receive social security or unemployment benefits may be less vulnerable to the loss of income, but unemployment has other serious effects on their lives. There is plenty of evidence that the value of a job far exceeds the wages received,34 so unemployment reaches beyond the loss of income. Its effects include psychological harm (such as a loss of work motivation and self-confidence), the attrition of skills, increases in ailments and illnesses (and even death), disruptions in family relations and social life, and social exclusion.35 Viewing vulnerability in the context of capabilities and choices focuses attention on the important relationship among human vulnerability, personal differences, environmental diversities, social variations, relational perspectives and resource distributions within households. Vulnerability may depend on a person’s age, gender, social roles, location, epidemiological atmosphere and other variations over which there is little or no control.36 Age and disability in particular are important facets of vulnerability. Children tend to be intrinsically more vulnerable than others. During a stampede, flood or hurricane they are more vulnerable to injury and death than adults are. Similarly, older people and those with disabilities living in high-rise apartments
If human development is about widening choices, human vulnerability stems quintessentially from a restriction of the choices critical to human development
Chapter 1 Vulnerability and human development | 23