The space of capabilities deprivation: the results of the

MACaD implementation within the Municipality of Rome 13

byM. D’Emilione, L. Fabrizi, G. A. Giuliano,

P. Raciti, S. Tenaglia, P. Vivaldi Vera

Department of Labour Market and Social PoliciesSocial Inclusion AreaRome, Corso Italia 33

Rome 22-23 May 2012

What is capability?

A capability is defined as the real power of choice that a person has, with respect to a specific system of states of being and doing (functionings), which are actually alternative and available.

Capabilities reflect the real degree of freedom that is internal to personal choice of living one kind of life rather than another.

Overview: survey context

Context• Municipality of Rome 13: 230.000 inhabitants • Peripheral urban area with constant population growth (aging index

significantly lower than the one recorded for the entire city of Rome: 114 vs 161).

• Doubled foreign population in the last decade (from 5% in 2000 to 10% in 2010) spread over the entire municipal area.

• Extensive settlements’ fragmentation: it is possible to identify at least 11/12 neighborhoods, each with its own distinctive characterization.

Social Services• 1,900 individuals in charge (year 2010);• 870 new users (year 2010);

Overview: survey characteristics

• field survey carried out, for six months, at the headquarters of the Social Services of the Municipality of Rome 13 (September 2011-February 2012)

• it does not consider administrative data but data collected through a specifically designed questionnaire (primary data collection)

• it is not an analysis of a population as a whole, but it analyzes the individual condition, with the possibility of collecting data by target groups

Survey objectives and tools

Objectives:• to operationalyze the capability approach to support the design and

evaluation of local policies• to increase the information available for policies and decision

makers both in the planning and evaluation phase

Tools:• multidimensional index which takes into account 6 life domains

• questionnaire:- divided into 6 areas (one for each domain plus a registry);-108 questions;- administered "face-to-face" in a protected environment;- time of administration: about 45 '- 570 valid questionnaires collected

Characteristics of the sample

• the majority are women (62%)• 45.6% belong to the age group 30-49• marital status: significant number of widowed and divorced (28%)

and unmarried / single women (21%)• 33% live in families with 4 or more members• foreigners are the 20% of the sample with a larger predominance of

immigrants from countries of the EU (especially Romania)• 54% has a low to medium level of education (primary and middle)

and about 8% has a degree or equivalent • employment status: significant percentage of unemployed (over

30%) and retired/pensioners (over 20%) but also workers with permanent contracts (20% approximately)

• about 60% is placed under the poverty threshold (equivalent income)

• most people have turned to social services to request economic assistance or a job (employment grants)

House (to be able to) live in a house

School (to be able to) learn

Work (to be able to) work

Social relationships (to be able to) build social relationships

Taking care of… (to be able to) take care of…

Capabilities,agency and functionings

Availability of basic goods to conduct a decent life

Life domains considered

a. living in a house means to be able to manage the house (to be able to sustain expenditures, to clean it and keep it in order)

b. income generating means to be able to manage and improve income sources

c. Being part of a community means to be able to have a good relationship with the environment, to maintain relationships with friends, neighbours, participating in the community life

d. developing skills, improving education means to be able to improve educational and/or professional level; to have among life goals, the improvement of the education level and be able to implement actions consistent with this goal

e. being healthy means to be able to take care of your own health and not acting dangerous or risk behaviors

f. expressing emotions means to be able to express feelings of anger, gratitude, love in all life domains; to be able to make full use of imagination, rationality and creativity in everyday life, to be able to express skills and talents in the workplace

The multidimensional index

• the index is based on the “counting approach" (Atkinson 2003), developed among others by Alkire and Foster (2007) and Bossert, Chakravarty and D'Ambrosio (2009)

• it is calculated for individuals• the variables considered are dummy type where 1 = deprived• It is sensitive to the degree of awareness of policy makers with respect to

the intensity of inequality• it was further adjusted, making it sensitive to the weights assigned by

respondents and various stakeholders to all functionings dimensions considered

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Index variables… a few examples

Domain Status Functioning

Living in a house

AB1- Type of home ownership (property, mortgage, rent) and AB 1.1 - Weight percentage of mortgage / rent on income

AB4 - Care of your own house

AB 5 - Presence of problems in the houseAB6 – Perception of relevant

issues regarding the house

AB2 - Availability of services in the house AB7 – Activation for the resolution of the problem AB3 - Number of rooms in the house

Being part of a

Community

AM1 – Access to social infrastructure AM2 – Frequency in the

practice of reporting activities

AM3 – Quality of family relationships AM2 – Frequency in the practice

of leisure / worship activities

AM6 – Quality of relationships with people living in the neighborhood

AM 5 – Activation in problem solving with respect to the neighbourhood

AM4 – Presence of relevant issues / problems in the residence neighborhood

AM8 – Reasons to remain / change area of residence

AM 4 - Problems you can find in your neighbourhood/ community (if ‘yes’ 1 ; if ‘no’ 0):

AM 1- How accessible are the following services in your neighborhood? (very much/enough/very little/absent)

Index variables…a few examplesDomain Status Functioning

Living in a house

AB1- Type of home ownership (property, mortgage, rent) and AB 1.1 - Weight percentage of mortgage / rent on income

AB4 - Care of your own house

AB 5 - Presence of problems in the houseAB6 – Perception of relevant issues

regarding the house

AB2 - Availability of services in the house AB7 – Activation for the resolution of the problem AB3 - Number of rooms in the house

Being part of aCommunity

AM1 – Access to social infrastructure AM2 – Frequency in the practice of

reporting activities

AM3 – Quality of family relationships AM2 – Frequency in the practice of leisure /

worship activities

AM6 – Quality of relationships with people living in the neighborhood

AM 5 – Activation in problem solving with respect to the neighbourhood

AM4 – Presence of relevant issues / problems in the residence neighborhood

AM8 – Reasons to remain / change area of residence

Incomegenerating

GR1 – burdensome costs to pay rent / mortgage / billsGR6 – Ability / capacity to meet basic

needs

GR2 – Moments in 2010 when it was struggling to pay certain expenses

GR10 – Ability to upgrade its own income with respect to the needs

GR3 – Get to the end of the month GR12 – Propensity to save and / or program costs

GR4.1 – Availability of a current account

GR5 – Using credit cards or similar

GR9 – Comparison between personal income and the one of local residents

GR8 – Adequacy of family income

Index variables (2)

Domain Status Functioning

Expressing emotions

E3 – Quality of life in the last 4 weeks E1 – Emotional Maturity

E4 – Level of life satisfaction in different domains in the last four weeks

E2 – Level of happiness in the last 4 weeks

E5 – Life satisfaction as a wholeE8.2 – Contribution to the realization of change

E6 - Help from others in certain situationsE9 (a,c,d,f,g,h)– self-efficacy and locus of control in the last 4 weeks

E7 – Stress level in the last year E11 – Clarity of life objectives

E12 – level of autonomy and freedom to live the life one wants to live

E14 – Opinion on the role of fate in personal life

Being healthy

SA7 – Difficulties in coping with health problems SA1 – perception of health status

SA8 – perceived level of health services in the area of residence

SA2 – risk behaviours

Developing skills, improving education

AC1 – Usefulness of Education AC2 – Activate to improve knowledge

AC4 – Usefulness of having interests/hobbies AC5 – Frequency of activities useful to gain knowledge

AC6– goods owned by the family

Correlation of domains: a status index

House Environment Income Emotions Health Knowledge

House 1 ,336(**) ,523(**) ,271(**) ,059 ,294(**)

Environment ,336(**) 1 ,301(**) ,424(**) ,380(**) ,218(**)

Income ,523(**) ,301(**) 1 ,427(**) ,089(*) ,402(**)

Emotions ,271(**) ,424(**) ,427(**) 1 ,411(**) ,335(**)

Health ,059 ,380(**) ,089(*) ,411(**) 1 ,160(**)

Knowledge ,294(**) ,218(**) ,402(**) ,335(**) ,160(**) 1

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011

Correlation of domains: a functioning index

House Environment Income Emotions Health Knowledge

House 1 ,205(**) ,325(**) ,142(**) ,262(**) ,114(*)

Environment ,205(**) 1 ,333(**) ,313(**) ,306(**) ,472(**)

Income ,325(**) ,333(**) 1 ,273(**) ,711(**) ,186(**)

Emotions ,142(**) ,313(**) ,273(**) 1 ,393(**) ,283(**)

Health ,262(**) ,306(**) ,711(**) ,393(**) 1 ,200(**)

Knowledge ,114(*) ,472(**) ,186(**) ,283(**) ,200(**) 1

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011

Index MACaD applied to the whole set of domains

A 36,9%

B 10,1

%

C38,8

%

D14,2%

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011

MACaD index applied to the “being part of a community” domain

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011

A 26,94%

B 20,82%

C31,84%

D20,41%

Comparison of % of sample distribution

House Environment Income Emotions Health Knowledge General

A 42,2% 26,94% 31,52% 45,80% 39,15% 40,42% 36,93%

B 22,5% 20,82% 21,79% 15,34% 32,75% 11,39% 10,09%

C 21,1% 31,84% 35,60% 25,21% 17,05% 30,17% 38,76%

D 14,3% 20,41% 11,09% 13,66% 11,05% 18,03% 14,22%

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011

The distribution is defined by dividing the axes in the average value expressed by the status and functioning indeces in a target group.

The target group was selected in relation to 11 variables related to a condition which was called "a decent life“.

For "decent" we mean a life that will respond to:- basic needs (nutrition, housing, health, employment and income)- major relational needs (friendship and family networks)- minimum level of education

A different sample distribution (1)

The variables considered are the following:

1. being employed

2. be above the threshold of relative poverty

3. have a home or rental property with a mortgage or rent less than 30% of the

income

4. have a good quality of family relationships

5. have a normal frequency in relationship activities (family, friends, leisure, etc)

6. absence of specific problems in the place of residence

7. being able to get to the end of the month with disposable income

8. perceived adequacy of income with respect to family needs

9. perception of an adequate quality of life

10. being healthy

11. higher qualification

A different sample distribution (2)

The new sample distribution

A 18,12%

B 18,35%

C57,57%

D5,96

%

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011

Comparison between % of sample distribution according to the two axis division

Home Community Income Emotions Health Knowledge General

A 15,04% 14,90% 9,14% 17,23% 21,12% 20,49% 18,12%

B 13,09% 19,18% 8,95% 19,54% 18,99% 9,49% 18,35%

C 52,34% 47,55%66,54

% 52,94% 30,81% 48,77% 57,57%

D 19,53% 18,37%15,37

% 10,29% 29,07% 21,25% 5,96%

Home Community Income Emotions Health Knowledge General

A 42,2% 26,94% 31,52% 45,80% 39,15% 40,42% 36,93%

B 22,5% 20,82% 21,79% 15,34% 32,75% 11,39% 10,09%

C 21,1% 31,84% 35,60% 25,21% 17,05% 30,17% 38,76%

D 14,3% 20,41% 11,09% 13,66% 11,05% 18,03% 14,22%

a. Average values for the sample as a whole

b. Average values for the selected target group

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011

Weights’ average assigned by respondents to each life domain

Home Income Community Knowledge Emotions Health

Mean 23,55 21,78 9,43 10,32 8,38 26,54

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011

MACaD Weighted Index applied to the whole set of life domains

A 41,27%

B 13,85

%

C30,19%

D14,68%

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011

Cause-effect association (1)

Quadrant A Quadrant C

not exposed

exposed

Objective

comparing the results with what was obtained from the MACaD model

Connects the cause of exposure (to belong to a particular target) to the effect (position in the quadrant). The frequency of exposure is calculated in "cases" with respect to "controls" where case and control are represented by their position in quadrants C and A.

Cause-effect association (2)

QUADRANT C QUADRANT A

Foreigner 43 19

Italian 126 142

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011Chi square test with p = 0,025

QUADRANT C QUADRANT A

Widowed/divorced/ separated

5335

Married / cohabiting 80 96

Odds= 2,55p= 0,0015*

Odds= 1,817p= 0,024*

Cause-effect association (3)

QUADRANT A QUADRANT C ODDS OBSERVED

Italian 142 126 2,55

Foreigner 19 43 p=0,0015*

Married / cohabiting 96 80 1,817

Widowed / divorced / separated

35 53p=0,024*

married 96 80 1,400

unmarried 30 35 p=0,247

low qualification 56 111 0,322

medium qualification 80 51 p=0,000*

low qualification 56 111 0,144

high qualification 21 6 p=0,000*

young 21 14 2,778

elderly 27 50 p=0,013*

employed 64 28 4,457

unemployed 40 78 p=0,000*

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011Chi square test with p = 0,025

MACaD Index by target "Civil Status"

Source: Based on Isfol data, MACaD Survey 2011

status2520151050

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20

15

10

5

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married/cohabitingwidowed/divorced/separadedunmarried

Civil status

Future development of the survey

• longitudinal analysis: application of the MACaD model to a panel of social services users in the Municipality of Rome 13 and other local administrations

• introducing a set of questions within the survey ISFOL-PLUS (Participation Labour Unemployment Survey: 50,000 interviews) for the application of the MACaD model in collaboration with the PLUS research team

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!