JEREMY EVANS

I N T R O D U C T I O N *

The papers in this issue explore the relationship between economics and the well-being of older men and women in both the less and the more developed sectors of the world. One of the more notable generalizations to find support in the collection relates to the wel l -known decline in economic welfare which generally accompanies retirement and/or advancing years. Evidence presented in these papers supports the hypothesis that this decline affects women con- siderably more than it does men in both the less and more developed world. And yet, paradoxical ly, women in most countries, with only a few exceptions in South Asia (Siegel and Hoover 1982:151), have longer life expectancies (at birth) than do men. As this apparent contradiction suggests, the relationship between economics and well-being is not a simple one.

The complexit ies of the relationship between economics and human well- being arise in large part from the character of the second o f these areas. Money, the subject matter o f economics, is a creation of the human semiotic, or sign- making, faculty, fundamental to our ability to use language. In other words, money is at base a sign or symbol. It belongs moreover to a select category o f signs, the quantities, which are subject to measurement and calculation. Wel l - being by contrast corresponds to a fuzzy set of states of the mind and body, knowable more by introspection than by object ive observation. These states to confound the matter further are influenced, not only by factors within the organism, but also by features of the environment, and of the organism's relationship to the latter. Wel l -being by its very nature defies s imple measure- ment and is recalcitrant even to analysis and conceptualization. Yet the use of money measures as ethical or value criteria in isolation from considerations of well-being can be seriously misleading. This claim is epi tomized by the familiar truism that rich and poor alike experience the joys and miseries o f l ife in roughly equal measure. It is ignored, on the other hand, whenever the Gross Domestic Product of a nation is used as an indicator of its progress, regardless of the fact that this statistic takes little account of human well-being and none of environ- mental damage.

One writer who has arguably contributed more than anyone else to meeting the challenge of thinking about human well-being is Sen (1987). Another who has made a valuable contribution to this end is Boyden (1989). The latter, starting from a posit ion within biology, never transcends the assumptions of his discipline. Sen and a small band of followers, by contrast, starting out from various disciplinary posi t ions within, or closely related to modem economics, have launched an attack on that discipl ine 's key foundation stone, ' economic man ' . This concept corresponds to the notion that human beings regulate their actions by rational calculation of the net cost or benefit which they expect to derive from these as isolated individuals (McPherson 1984:236). The work of

Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 5: 183-189, 1990. © 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Sen and his followers begins as an attempt to reconstruct the discipline of economics from the ground up, but ends up by achieving much more. At the risk of some oversimplification, Sen's analysis of the nature of human well-being results in a classificatory framework, comprising a set of items, a sub-set of that set and, finally, a sub-set of that sub-set (Sen 1987:26-29), as follows:

1. Freedom (Sen's 'agency achievement'). Sen defines this concept as the individual's particular 'bundle of capabilities', in his or her own particular circumstances, to achieve his or her own personal 'objectives' in various areas of valued 'functioning'. The brilliance of Sen's scheme derives in considerable measure from the fact that he has founded it upon a conviction that human beings are fundamentally capable of free choice and therefore, ultimately, responsible for their own actions.

2. 'Well-being'. Sen regularly applies the world 'personal' as a qualifier to this term, explaining that he is using the word here in an enlarged sense, meant to include the individual's broader, social as well as environmental, 'sympathies' and 'antipathies'. Any given individual might be expected to assign those of his or her 'capabilities' which are directed in any way to achieving the 'objective' of 'well-being' a high value, but this cannot be assumed. Thus, most people entertain other 'objectives' besides, or in conflict with those conducive to their own 'well-being'. It is for this reason that Sen classifies freedom as the larger set, which includes well-being as a sub-set. An example cited by Sen is the crusader for a good cause, who pursues her primary 'objectives' regardless of the resulting cost to her own 'well-being'. This example is particularly apt because it presses home Sen's intention of combining the 'well-being' of the individual with that of relevant others.

3. 'Standard of living'. This expression is defined by Sen as the "nature of the person's life". If a sub-set of the totality of a person's potential 'capabilities' and 'functionings' corresponds to their 'well-being', then a sub-set of the latter, a sub-sub-set of freedom, corresponds to their 'standard of living'. The last of these comprises those 'capabilities', 'functionings' and 'achievements' which relate directly to the person's individual quality of life.

Sen argues on the basis of the foregoing framework that utility, the foundation of all value in modem economics, suffers from a number of serious inade- quacies. In the context of his framework, life expectancy, economic resources, health, subjective well-being and much else, become the conditions, or pre- requisites, of a person's particular 'bundle of capabilities'. Sen's framework provides a matrix which coherently organizes these and the other, multifarious, phenomena of well-being for the first time, although there is insufficient space here to explain the remarkable character of this achievement further.

The hypothesis about declining 'economic welfare', cited above, can be reinterpreted and generalized in the context of Sen's framework as a progressive loss of capabilities, falling within the broad category of freedoms, with advanc- ing years. Thus, Guillette's paper presents a heart-rending picture of aged Tswana (using the word 'aged' here in an intentionally generic sense), retired from working lives in South African cities to rural retirement in their homeland,

INTRODUCTION 185

the nation of Botswana. Older men and women identified as mogomo ( 'elders') still manage to contribute to society by attending village meetings or caring for grandchildren, activities which cam them a modicum of respect and some consequent sense of community, if scant funds. When they come to be regarded as motsofe ( 'old' persons) however, meaning that they are no longer capable of making valued contributions to society, the majority not only find themselves living in still deeper poverty but also exhibit, and report experience of, profound loneliness, purposelessness and neglect. While loss of physical and mental capabilities are part causes of this progressive loss of freedom, social and economic factors clearly exacerbate the gravity of this loss, and the conse- quences are tangible in the circumstances of these people's lowered well-being as well as standard of living.

Guillette has come to realize during a subsequent period of field-work in Botswana that retuming labor migrants have to adapt to a twofold loss of former freedoms (Personal communication 1989). In the first place, they must make the transition from full self-support to near total economic dependency on others in the absence of any age pension scheme in Botswana. In the second place, they are changing across from an industrialized environment, served by electricity, indoor plumbing and ready access to commodities, to a less developed, tradi- tional, environment with a very restricted choice of foods, limited services and almost no commodities.

Moiler and Welch describe the results of a study of elderly male Zulus, retired in similar fashion to Guillette's Tswana, to their respective homelands in the several KwaZulu regions of Natal province, South Africa. A traditionally oriented minority of Zulus (23% of the authors' sample), unlike the great majority of Tswana, practice polygamy, and these authors report the discovery of strong positive correlations between the polygamous state and several independent measures of subjective well-being. Path analysis suggests that the effect of polygamy on these measures is mediated by independent influences on socioeconomic and health status.

If the attainment of 'elder' status among the Tswana, followed by 'old ' person status, is associated with a progressive loss of freedoms, in particular ones affecting well-being and standard of living, elderly, traditionally oriented, Zulu men appear to have developed an adaptive strategy, enabling them the better to weather these losses, in the practice of polygamy. This custom clearly benefits the men involved, but how does it affect the well-being of the women? As Moiler and Welch are careful to point out, it remains to be recorded what Zulu women, young or old, think about, or experience as a result of, polygamy. The authors also state that one of the benefits envisaged for polygamy is the fact that it is considered to be "the most efficient means of producing a large family in a given time period". It thus emerges that polygamy may also incur a cost on the well-being of its practitioners, however unaware the latter may be of this result, by contributing to over-population and consequent environmental degradation.

My own paper describes findings from a study of the old people living in one district of a Javanese city. It presents a quantitative account of the incomes and

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certain other variables relating to important aspects of the household economics of these people. Despite the fact that economic phenomena, unlike well-being, are readily accessible to measurement, it is remarkable how little information has been published on simple economic variables like these for old people in any part of the less developed world. The paper also reports measurements of the old peoples' Body Mass Indices (BMI: weight/height2). Consistent with the findings of a few other, generally comparable, studies, also conducted in the less developed world, most of the economic variables show strong positive correla- tions with the BMI. Detailed analysis of these correlations suggests that the control of funds, or 'economic status', acts as an important determinant of access to food within the household.

In Sen's terms, these findings mean that those old people who lacked, or possessed only limited, economic status, tended to suffer limitation of the freedom to eat as much, or as well, as those with higher economic status were able to do. This limitation is probably associated with some perceived and/or measurable deficiencies in well-being, as well as standard of living, in the forms of lowered social status and under- or malnutrition, respectively, although these associations remain to be established. In this study, as in Rosenman and Winocur's which concludes the collection, it is the women who clearly undergo the more severe loss of freedoms with advancing age.

The remaining papers explore the predicament of old people in the contexts of other relevant frameworks, Nugent's in terms of another innovative departure within economic theory, as well as in terms of government policy, and the last two papers in the context of the latter alone. Even the 'New Family Economics' is founded upon an assumption that the household or family is analogous to the selfish, rationalizing, individual of modem economics (Pollak 1985:581-582). Nugent, like Sen, rejects this assumption, drawing on recently elaborated economic theory which seeks to model domestic units in terms of the transac- tions which their members contract among themselves. Nugent analyses the traditional South Asian 'stem' family in these terms and also the 'old age security motive for fertility'. This motive, exemplified by Mc~ller and Welch's remark about polygamy, cited earlier, probably still holds considerable sway in many parts of the less developed world.

Nugent goes on to describe the many trends underway in the less developed world which are undermining the capability of South Asian families, in par- ticular, to provide economic support for their older members. Further analysis in game theory terms of the intergenerational transactions fundamental to old age support leads him to the conclusion that social norms play a crucial role by promoting cooperative over competitive outcomes to these particular transac- tions.

Nugent maintains that many of the less developed national economies in the world today lack the means to counteract the declining welfare of their older citizens by the more developed country strategy of providing aged pensions, and therefore concludes that family support of old people offers the only viable, alternative, option in many of these. He ends his paper by outlining a number of

INTRODUCTION 187

possible government policies calculated to promote social norms and intra- family transactions favorable to this arrangement. Nugent's paper is a valuable addition to the growing debate about how old people in the less developed world are to be supported although he is, I suspect, acting the Devil 's advocate. As the co-author of a study of the effect of pensions on fertility in rural Mexico (Nugent and GiUaspy 1983) and author of a masterly review on the old age security motive for fertility (Nugent 1985), he must be more aware than most of the likely cost, both human and environmental, of continued reliance on the over-stretched family support system.

It is notable also that that oft-cited paragon of social welfare and good health in the less developed world, the Indian state of Kerala, provides government pensions for some sizeable number of elderly female agricultural workers (Nair and Tracy 1989). Kerala's old age pension system is, admittedly, not universal, and it is also clearly far from perfect. Yet this example serves to demonstrate that, Nugent's case notwithstanding, the governments of some less developed countries might be capable of providing considerably more income support for old people than they do at present, despite limited budgets.

Two major, alternative, approaches have been developed to the provision of income support for old people and other needy groups. These are commonly referred to as 'social assistance' and 'social insurance', respectively (United States 1986:ix). Schemes of the first kind depend upon payments made from general govemment revenue and are frequently referred to as 'non-contributory' or, if the description fits, as 'universal'. Schemes of the second kind, by contrast, depend upon payments made from special funds, built up over the years from the contributions of employers and/or their employees. These schemes are frequently described as 'contributory' or 'employment-related'. Examples of the second kind of scheme include the United States's 'Social Security' scheme and Australia and New Zealand's 'occupational superannuation'.

McCallum outlines the development of the old age support systems of Australia and New Zealand. The governments of these two countries were early innovators in this field, establishing 'social assistance' schemes, in the form of non-contributory, means-tested, 'Age Pensions' for all eligible citizens during the last decade of the previous century and the first decade of the present one. The major aim of these schemes has always been the relief of poverty. Con- tributory 'occupational superannuation' schemes have developed in the private and public sectors of both countries over an even longer period. The latter schemes now enable some considerable proportion of employees with incomes in the higher range, a privileged minority of the population at large, to make tax- advantaged contributions towards maintaining their pre-retirement income levels on into retirement.

The great majority of other national governments went on to establish contributory, 'social insurance', schemes for old people (United States 1986), although many of these schemes are backed by 'safety nets' of the 'social assistance' type. The latter, in contrast to the Australian and New Zealand 'Age Pensions', provide only limited benefits to restricted numbers of people. The

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governments of Australia and New Zealand both toyed from time to time during the course of the present century with the 'social insurance' alternative, but always ended up by retaining their original schemes. 'Social assistance' systems have been unfashionable in recent years, but provide effective, basic, income support at relatively low cost. They therefore offer an important option for less developed countries, where few people possess the capacity to make pension contributions.

Rosenman and Winocur report the results of a study of the life pattems of a national sample of Australian women of all ages. They describe age cohort trends in income sources, marriage, child bearing, work force participation and superannuation scheme membership. More older women than men are solely reliant on the universal 'Age Pension' and fewer receive pensions from 'occupational superannuation'. The great majority of those women who had ever worked had withdrawn from the work force at some time, the older the cohort, the higher being the percentage who had stayed out of work for ten years or longer.

This discontinuous pattern of work is associated with low rates of superannua- tion scheme membership. Moreover, few of the older women alive today derive income, for whatever reason, from any superannuation membership of now deceased husbands. One important explanation of the economic disadvantage of Australian women in retirement, relative to men, lies in the rules governing most superannuation schemes, which have been framed to favour the long-term employment pattem preferred by most employers and exhibited by many men. The authors outline a number of means, some already in place, some others not, by which these schemes might be modified to overcome the observed disparities between the sexes in retirement income. This final paper balances McCallum's in drawing attention to some of the notable deficiencies in Australia's total pattern of retirement income provision, and also repeats the theme, common to many of the papers, of the decline in freedom, well-being and standard of living, which both men and women, but especially the latter, tend to suffer with advancing years.

The papers in this collection add a number of notable features to a relatively new, still largely uncharted scientific territory, the study of human well-being. The present state of this study is reminiscent a map of one of the newly dis- covered continents from the early years of European exploration, with Amartya Sen in the role of having provided one of the earliest, believable, sketches of the continent's outline and major features. As the human species progressively learns to better regulate its own activities in response to its rapidly rising awareness of the damage which it has inflicted on the biosphere, as well as on large numbers of its own more vulnerable members, this study may be expected to become one of our more useful and valued scientific disciplines.

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NOTE

* I owe thanks to two remarkable 'D Ps', in the first place, to the late Dr David Penny, who gave me loyal support, friendship and advice on the first leg of the intellectual path which led, some way along the track, to the idea of organizing this special issue. In the second place, I offer thanks to David's colleague and friend, Dr D.P. Chaudhri, for introducing me to the writings of Professor Sen. David would have chuckled with pleasure at the thought of receiving a late curtain-call like this one, together with his good old friend, hidden away within a scholarly footnote.

REFERENCES

Boyden, Stephen 1989 Western Civilization in Biological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McPherson, Michael 1984 On Schelling, Hirschman, and Sen: Revising the Conception of the Self. Partisan Review 51:236-247.

Nair, Sobha B. and Martin B. Tracy 1989 Pensions for Women in the Third World: A Case Study of Kerala, India. International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, forthcoming.

Nugent, Jeffrey B. 1985 The Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility. Population and Development Review 11:75-97.

Nugent, Jeffrey B. and R. Thomas Gillaspy 1983 Old Age Pension and Fertility in Rural Areas of Less Developed Countries: Some Evidence from Mexico. Economic Development and Cultural Change 31:809-829.

Pollak, Robert A. 1985 A Transactional Cost Approach to Families and Households. Journal of Economic Literature 23:581-608.

Sen, Amartya 1987 The Standard of Living. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Siegel, Sally L. and Jacob S. Hoover 1982 Demographic Aspects of the Health of the

Elderly to the Year 2000 and Beyond. World Health Statistics 35:133-202. United States Department of Health and Human Services, Social Security Administration

1986 Social Security Programs Throughout the W o r l d - 1985. Washington D.C.

Human Sciences Program The Australian National University Canberra, Australia