Social institutions and household success

Sen's description of the evidence on page 190 seemed quite significant to me: " ... some variables relating to women's agency," he says, "... often play a much more important role in promoting social well-being ... than variables relating to the general level of opulence in society." Going back to one reading from a while ago (also by Sen), we can see that economic growth undoubtedly improved health outcomes (as measured by life expectancy), but—as the comparison with India shows—they also could have been much better had the political system redistributed those benefits more equally using social programs (pp. 38–39 in the reader). Similarly, holding constant the social and cultural factors that influence the share of resources and freedoms that women hold, we could expect that a household would become healthier if its income increased. Yet, as Sen notes, fertility rates and child mortality are much more strongly influenced by measures of female empowerment or agency such as education than by the "general level of opulence." This means a household would be better off if its female caregiver were educated or participated in the labor force than if each working member received a raise. To me, such a conclusion suggests that development requires a strong social and cultural component that ensures more equitable opportunities for women, at least at the level of families. This seems analogous to the tremendous importance of institutions to development at the macro-level: countries only experience real and lasting increases in GDP if they have the institutions that allow people to participate equally in markets and benefit from them. Similarly, families experience significant increases in well-being—not to mention the more intangible personal benefits of the increased freedom that constitutes women's agency—if their institutions (the social and cultural determinants of the roles of women and men) allow for greater efficiency, opportunity, and participation by women.