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While Nussbaum and Sen have their differing theoretical perspectives on having a list of capabilities, others have moved forward with measurements that are based on capabilities and that better capture development, well-being and quality of life, specifically in comparison with economics based measures such as Gross Domestic Product and Gross National Product. Although Sen does not promote using a set list of capabilities, he has has mentioned, “that one of the uses of the capability perspective is to bring out the need for transparent valuational scrutiny of individual advantages and adversities” ^[1] Furthermore, Sen, Nussbaum and others offer a capability-based critique of using GDP and GNP as measures of wellbeing. Essentially, these economic based measures were created as a source to indicate a country’s economic prosperity and in many cases it is true that a growing economy introduces qualities that improve living standards. However, the critique captures that GDP and GNP are inadequate as measures of well-being because economic well-being does not guarantee a well-rounded perspective of well-being and quality of life ^[2] Monetary and nonmonetary measures of well-being are ideal when used to compliment each other. Understanding the various aspects of developmental progress not only helps address issues of inequality and lags in human development, but in being able to pin point where countries are falling behind, the issues themselves once addressed further promote well-being and advancement. In the words published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development:

Well-being has several dimensions of which monetary factors are only one. They are nevertheless an important one, since richer economies are better placed to create and maintain other well-being-enhancing conditions, such as a clean environment, the likelihood that the average person will have a right to 10 years or more of education, and lead a comparatively long and healthy life. Well-being will also be increased by institutions that enable citizens to feel that they control their own lives, and that investment of their time and resources will be rewarded. In turn, this will lead to higher incomes in a virtuous circle.

^[3] To add further back ground on GDP, the founder of the measure, Simon Kuznets, said to be cautious of using the measure as an indicator of overall welfare. In his words, “distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between cots and returns and between the short and long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what” ^[4] In sum, the conclusion is that people do not just value financial income, and the theory shows that development and various indicators that are linked to life satisfaction are important in measuring wellbeing. Developmental endeavors exist to create an environment for people to live long, healthy creative lives. ^[5]

In 1990 in the Human Development Report commissioned by the United Nations Development Program set out to create a distribution-sensitive development measure. ^[6] This measure was created to rival the more traditional metrics of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Gross National Product (GNP), which had previously been used to measure development in a given country, but which did not contain provisions for any considerations in terms of distribution (how wealth and resources in a given country are shared between its residents) ^[7]. The resulting measure was entitled the Human Development Index (HDI), created by Mahbub ul Haq with help from Sen and others. The purpose in mind was to create an indicator of human development, especially one that would provide a general assessment and critique of global human development ^[8]. Currently the HDI continues to be used in the Human Development Report in addition to many other measures (based on theoretical perspectives of Capabilities) that have been developed and used by the United Nations. Among these indices are the Gender-related Development Index (GDI), the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) and more recent, the Gender Inequality Index (GII) and the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) and others. However, the focus of this section, will be on those measurements that are largely based on Capabilities Approach and focused on attaining a basic quality of life ^[9]

As noted above, to a great extent Nussbaum’s Central Human Capabilities address issues of poverty, equality, political freedom, creativity and the right to the self, as do the various indices that are based on capabilities. It is evident that these measures are very subjective, but this fact is in the essence of defining quality of life according to Nussbaum and Sen. Nussbaum refers to Sen in saying that, although measures of well-being may be problematic in comparative, quantifiable models due to their subjective matter, the protection of and commitment to human development are too important of matters to be left on the sidelines of economic progress. Well-being and quality of life are too important to be left to whim or without intentional focus for direct political action, that is to say, measures such as the HDI, GDI, GEM, GII, IHDI and the like are crucial in targeting issues of well-being and indicators of quality of life. ^[10] The majority of issues with using alternative measures of well-being lay with the subjectivity of the matter, the access to data, and the reliability of the measures. Without getting into the technicalities of specifying the model, Paul Anand can be summarized in saying that the multivariate and abstract nature of well-being makes it difficult to specify the model ^[11] In essence the main issues in using alternative measures come from the troubles in applying numerical reference to something that is not calculable to begin with such as the value of leisure time, the value of volunteer work and other abstract topics that measures based on capabilities attempt to include ^[12] Although the capabilities approach is difficult to apply empirically, it has been highly influential thus far in development ^[13], the theory has led to the creation of the HDI (and others) and their uses among international organizations such as the United Nations, OECD, the World Bank, the WHO and others.

The following are a few of the major indices that were created based on the theoretical grounds of Capabilities Approach. “According to Pressman (2000), the HDI and its sister indices the GDI and the GEM represent influential attempts to measure success and failure in development and are based on key capabilities in different Countries”. ^[14]

The Human Development Index took into consideration a number of development and well-being factors that were not previously taken into account in the calculation of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Gross National Product (GNP). The Human Development Index (HDI) was calculated using the indicators of life expectancy, adult literacy, school enrollment, and logarithmic transformations of per-capita income ^[6]. Moreover, John Schischka notes that the HDI “is a weighted average of income adusted for distributions and purchasing power, life expectancy, literacy and health” ^[15]. The HDI is calculated for individual countries with a value between 0 and 1 and is “interpreted as the ultimate development that hs been attained by that nation”. ^[16] Currently, the 2011 Human Development Report also includesthe Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index which accounts for the exact same things that the HDI considers however the IHDI has all three dimensions (long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living) adjusted for inequalities in the distribution of each dimension across the population. ^[17] In 1995, the United Nations Development Program introduced two new measuring indices, namely the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) and the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and more recently the Gender Inequality Index (GII) in order to expand on the Human Development Index (HDI) and to add a gender component to the measurement of development in a given country.

The Gender-related Development Index (GDI) is defined as a “distribution-sensitive measure that accounts for the human development impact of existing gender gaps in the three components of the HDI” (Klasen 243). In this way, the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) accounts for some shortcomings in the Human Development Index in terms of gender, because it re-evaluate’s a country’s score on the three areas of the Human Development Index based on perceived gender gaps in the three areas, and penalizes the score of the country if, indeed, large gender disparities in those areas exist.

The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) is considerably more specialized than the Gender-related Development Index. The GEM focuses particularly on the relative empowerment of women in a given country ^[7]. The empowerment of women is measured by evaluating women’s employment in high-ranking economic positions, seats in parliament, and share of household income.

In the 2010 Human Development Report the Gender Inequality Index (GII) was introduced in order to correct some of the shortcomings of the (GDI) and the (GEM). This new experimental composite measurement uses three dimension: reproductive health, empowerment, and labor force participation. ^[18]

In 1997, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) introduced the Human Poverty Measure, which was aimed at measuring poverty in both industrialized and developing countries.