The World Bank's annual World Development Report for 2015 has the working title of 'Mind and culture' (helpfully, the Bank pre-releases the focal areas of the forthcoming report). A scan of the twitter-sphere suggests that it hasn't been picked up widely yet, but where it has, the reaction seems positive. Robert Chambers at IDS emphasises the different way of thinking about development; and others welcome this recognition of the importance of context and culture.
Now the Bank is on to something important, but my instinctive reaction is to be cautious. The outline states: poverty is best understood not only as a state of deprivation but as an environment that affects decision-making. Remove one or two words and poverty becomes a question of behaviour and bad choices, not constrained decision-making and injustice. So while the topic is an important one, there is a fine line to walk. But there are useful contributions I hope the WDR may be able to make.
First, the authors are already en route to making an important contribution simply by acknowledging that psychosocial well-being matters, both intrinsically and instrumentally. The first commands consensus (at least on the importance of dignity). The second needs more expansion: poor well-being undermines other objectives. A recent review for the UK government, for example, highlights links between so called 'non-cognitive' skills, education and labour market outcomes. Similarly a neat piece of analysis of Young Lives data identified that children's higher levels of psychosocial development at age 12 promoted better later cognitive achievement.
Plausible explanations are not hard to find: feeling bad about your future options or about how others see you is unlikely to promote good school attendance or learning. If you want to see how that might pan out in practice, see the chart which demonstrates how poorer children report more shame than less poor children. If poverty induces shame, and feelings of shame undermine other options, shame is not only a product of poverty, but will worsen it in insidious ways. We will be publishing more on this shortly.
Feelings of shame, reported by children aged 12 by expenditure quintile
Second, a striking finding from our interviews with young people and their families is the importance they assign to social reputation. This is of crucial importance for policymakers not least since understanding what matters to programme recipients, rather than planners, is a surer guide as to how individual choices are made and so on.
For example, while policy narratives emphasise the importance of education levels or nutrition, children and their parents often emphasise other things as well - social reputation, marriageability, reciprocity, and contributions to the family and community. This isn't a huge surprise given that humans are social beings, but it is important to understand that people might choose to put their concerns about their children's social reputation above other things such as education, etc. And that it might be rational for them to do this to secure their place within a community. Poor families incurring debt to pay for a wedding is easier to understand if this is the price of social expectations and settling a young person's future.
Third, there is a contribution to be made in setting decision-making in context. This has real potential policy bite. But as the axiom goes, for every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. Why do parents make different choices for girls and boys? Discrimination? In some cases yes, but parents are also forced to make sharp choices that may discriminate between girls and boys precisely because of the different labour market opportunities women and men will have later in life. So a household choice reflects wider social inequities.
Similarly, why do outlawed and risky harmful traditional practices persist? Outdated views? Again, perhaps. But if the cultural logic of such practices is to protect a young person's social and moral reputation, the first family in a community to say no is taking the huge risk that their daughters will be unmarriageable. Why do children stop school early? Ignorance of the power of education? Hardly. Children and parents are usually hugely positive about the potential of education. If some groups do have lower aspirations, it is usually better understood in terms of the realities of the options faced by marginalised people rather than a failure of aspirations. Such choices are not irrational; they need to be understood in a context. So the Bank has picked an important topic for the next WDR, but a tricky one.
As a final note, the former parliamentarian Tony Benn died last week. Benn was a radical, an internationalist and a socialist. In paying tribute, Duncan Green from Oxfam quoted an interview where Benn put his finger on the problem: Choice depends on the freedom to choose and if you are shackled with debt you don't have the freedom to choose.
If the WDR can focus attention on the context which constrains people's decisions, rather than the mind-set of those facing constraints, then that really would be a paradigm shifting contribution to how development policy deals with poor people.
The World Bank's annual World Development Report for 2015 has the working title of 'Mind and culture' (helpfully, the Bank pre-releases the focal areas of the forthcoming report). A scan of the twitter-sphere suggests that it hasn't been picked up widely yet, but where it has, the reaction seems positive. Robert Chambers at IDS emphasises the different way of thinking about development; and others welcome this recognition of the importance of context and culture.
Now the Bank is on to something important, but my instinctive reaction is to be cautious. The outline states: poverty is best understood not only as a state of deprivation but as an environment that affects decision-making. Remove one or two words and poverty becomes a question of behaviour and bad choices, not constrained decision-making and injustice. So while the topic is an important one, there is a fine line to walk. But there are useful contributions I hope the WDR may be able to make.
First, the authors are already en route to making an important contribution simply by acknowledging that psychosocial well-being matters, both intrinsically and instrumentally. The first commands consensus (at least on the importance of dignity). The second needs more expansion: poor well-being undermines other objectives. A recent review for the UK government, for example, highlights links between so called 'non-cognitive' skills, education and labour market outcomes. Similarly a neat piece of analysis of Young Lives data identified that children's higher levels of psychosocial development at age 12 promoted better later cognitive achievement.
Plausible explanations are not hard to find: feeling bad about your future options or about how others see you is unlikely to promote good school attendance or learning. If you want to see how that might pan out in practice, see the chart which demonstrates how poorer children report more shame than less poor children. If poverty induces shame, and feelings of shame undermine other options, shame is not only a product of poverty, but will worsen it in insidious ways. We will be publishing more on this shortly.
Feelings of shame, reported by children aged 12 by expenditure quintile
Second, a striking finding from our interviews with young people and their families is the importance they assign to social reputation. This is of crucial importance for policymakers not least since understanding what matters to programme recipients, rather than planners, is a surer guide as to how individual choices are made and so on.
For example, while policy narratives emphasise the importance of education levels or nutrition, children and their parents often emphasise other things as well - social reputation, marriageability, reciprocity, and contributions to the family and community. This isn't a huge surprise given that humans are social beings, but it is important to understand that people might choose to put their concerns about their children's social reputation above other things such as education, etc. And that it might be rational for them to do this to secure their place within a community. Poor families incurring debt to pay for a wedding is easier to understand if this is the price of social expectations and settling a young person's future.
Third, there is a contribution to be made in setting decision-making in context. This has real potential policy bite. But as the axiom goes, for every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. Why do parents make different choices for girls and boys? Discrimination? In some cases yes, but parents are also forced to make sharp choices that may discriminate between girls and boys precisely because of the different labour market opportunities women and men will have later in life. So a household choice reflects wider social inequities.
Similarly, why do outlawed and risky harmful traditional practices persist? Outdated views? Again, perhaps. But if the cultural logic of such practices is to protect a young person's social and moral reputation, the first family in a community to say no is taking the huge risk that their daughters will be unmarriageable. Why do children stop school early? Ignorance of the power of education? Hardly. Children and parents are usually hugely positive about the potential of education. If some groups do have lower aspirations, it is usually better understood in terms of the realities of the options faced by marginalised people rather than a failure of aspirations. Such choices are not irrational; they need to be understood in a context. So the Bank has picked an important topic for the next WDR, but a tricky one.
As a final note, the former parliamentarian Tony Benn died last week. Benn was a radical, an internationalist and a socialist. In paying tribute, Duncan Green from Oxfam quoted an interview where Benn put his finger on the problem: Choice depends on the freedom to choose and if you are shackled with debt you don't have the freedom to choose.
If the WDR can focus attention on the context which constrains people's decisions, rather than the mind-set of those facing constraints, then that really would be a paradigm shifting contribution to how development policy deals with poor people.