Reframing employment as ‘capability improving’ relies on individualistic conceptions of neoliberal freedom and makes radical care impossible.

One important reason for interpreting capability narrowly as the capacity to participate in the economy through employment lies in the fact that this interpretation allows to reframe social policy as an “investment.” Hence, while at the individual level the employment-focused paradigm is justified in terms of empowerment, at the collective level it is legitimized through its contribution to economic growth. Social policies promoting individuals’ participation in the economy are thus praised for being able to reconcile social and economic goals (Hemerijck Citation2013, 134) whereas, not surprisingly, the emphasis on unpaid care work and political participation is much less strong: these activities have no or very little economic return. Yet, from a capability perspective, justifying social policy in terms of economic growth appears difficult. Indeed, one of the central normative concern of capability theorists has been precisely that of challenging the appropriateness of economic growth as a measure of social wellbeing, arguing that it treats a means—and not even a very good means (Crocker Citation1992, 585)—as if it was an end in itself (e.g. Sen Citation1999). This is not to say that economic progress is unimportant. However, there is no automatic link between economic growth and social wellbeing. For example, higher economic growth does not necessarily imply a better healthcare or education system and indeed national rankings based on the Human Development Index are not the same as those based on GDP (Nussbaum Citation2011, 48).