The contributions of the scholars in this volume are driven by a profound ambition: to help build a better world. Central to this ambition is the possibility of shaping one’s life – and, more specifically, one’s work – on the basis of freedom, aspiration, values, and individual capabilities. Within the framework of the capability approach, as developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, capabilities refer to the opportunities and freedoms individuals have to achieve what they value. Equally important is the recognition of what truly matters in people’s lives, and the societal responsibility to provide enabling conditions and institutions that allow individuals to genuinely realise these valued goals. The promotion of capabilities is thus closely connected to questions of social justice and collective responsibility.
This perspective is highly relevant in the Global North, where burnout and psychosocial stress are widespread concerns and where many individuals with work-related limitations remain excluded from the labour market. It is equally pressing in the Global South, where unemployment – especially among the youth – remains one of the most serious challenges, and where historical legacies of exclusion continue to shape the world of work.
Historical Lessons from Africa
The African experience offers powerful insights into the meaning of capabilities at work. The migrant labour system under apartheid in South Africa provided virtually no opportunities for workers to exercise capabilities. Migrant workers were rarely asked about their well-being, and early surveys in the 1970s found widespread dissatisfaction with life and the future. By the mid 1980s, research documented anxiety, stress, and demoralisation among migrant workers, with older workers bearing heavier burdens due to family responsibilities in rural areas.
The migrant labour system was rooted in the needs of the mining economy. A tax forced tribesmen, previously outside the money economy, to leave their homesteads and families to work in the mines. To keep wages low, workers were recruited not only from South Africa but also from neighbouring countries. The work was tedious, repetitive, and poorly paid. Some workers found small acts of resistance, such as pilfering, to create a fleeting sense of agency and dignity.
Because agency was so severely constrained at work, it often found expression after work. Gumboot dancing, for instance, originated as a way for mineworkers to communicate underground when talking was forbidden. Over time, this developed into a distinctive dance form performed in hostels and later celebrated on stages worldwide. Similarly, Durban stevedores held Zulu dance competitions, supported by employers and adjudicated by volunteers from universities. Such activities created ‘third spaces’ – neither at home nor at work – where workers expressed identity, resilience, and dignity.
For many, however, capabilities had to be deferred to retirement. Former miners and factory workers often retired early due to hazardous conditions and returned to rural areas to farm or start small businesses. In surveys, they expressed hopes of becoming entrepreneurs, mill owners, or pig farmers – roles that finally allowed them to exercise agency, competence, and self-determination long denied in the workplace.
Contemporary Challenges and Aspirations
Today, unemployment remains the greatest problem facing many African countries. According to the Afrobarometer Round 7 report, Africa’s youthful population far exceeds the number of available jobs. For young people, finding work is akin to a rite of passage into adulthood. In rural Gambia, for example, young men risk the perilous ‘back way’ migration across the Sahara and Mediterranean to seek employment in Europe, with their families depending on remittances. The best prepared to emigrate Africa are the most educated youth, a brain drain Africa cannot afford. Yet, contrary to stereotypes, many Africans wish to migrate to neighbouring countries rather than to Europe or North America. The creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area may, in future, help facilitate such regional mobility.
Nationally representative surveys in South Africa confirm that employment remains the highest aspiration. The South African Social Attitudes Survey in 2012 and 2022 identified ‘employment’ as the top personal hope, with ‘jobs for all, youth employment’ gaining prominence in 2022. Strikingly, entrepreneurship – once denied to black South Africans under apartheid – emerged as another top aspiration. These findings highlight both the enduring centrality of work and the growing desire for meaningful agency and opportunity.
Universal Concerns and the Capability Approach
The challenges of work are not limited to the South. In the Netherlands, despite labour market tightness, people with work-related vulnerabilities still struggle to find jobs. High-performance expectations discourage employers from creating space for such workers, even as inclusive organisational cultures and technologies are gradually improving opportunities. More broadly, exploitation, unsafe conditions, meaningless work, excessive workloads, limited participation in decision-making, and the erosion of social relationships in increasingly virtual work environments undermine capabilities across the globe.
Work everywhere has a dual significance: it involves both having employment and finding value and purpose in that employment. To enable people to flourish at work, several conditions are required: a) access to employment opportunities; b) self-knowledge of what one values; c) supportive work contexts that allow individuals to pursue these values; and d) the actual freedom to achieve them.
These conditions depend on conversion factors operating at multiple levels – societal, organisational, work-related, and personal. Labour experts and professionals play a crucial role in guiding individuals to identify their capability set for work. They must work from a foundation of trust and with sufficient time to enable genuine reflection. The circle model presented in this book is a practical tool for such dialogue, helping workers, professionals, and organisations to visualise valued domains, identify unrealised capabilities, and share responsibility for creating enabling environments.
The Future of Work and Capabilities
The realisation of capabilities at work is a continuous process, as both personal values and work environments change over time. Paid employment continues to occupy a prominent position in our lives, not only because it provides the means of subsistence but also because it can contribute to society and personal fulfilment. Yet economic and technological transformations may fundamentally alter the meaning of work, reconfigure the relationship between work and leisure, and challenge existing institutions.
It is of particular importance for scholars to explore which capabilities and progressive factors enable individuals to achieve balance and meaning in new forms of work, and how these factors contribute to human flourishing. The capability approach offers a normative compass, reminding us that rights or economic growth do not automatically translate into genuine freedoms or opportunities. Instead, supportive institutions, inclusive cultures, and human-centred practices are needed to ensure that all individuals can shape their lives and work according to what they value.
Invitation to Work on Capabilities
Capabilities at Work honours Amartya Sen’s legacy in quality-of-life studies while offering fresh insights into the history, present, and future of work in both the Global North and the Global South. It combines theoretical grounding, empirical evidence, and practical tools. The contributions in this volume demonstrate the universal relevance of work capabilities.
By bringing these diverse perspectives together in this scholarly work on Capabilities at Work, editors Jac van der Klink and Ian Rothmann present readers with the knowledge, reflection, and practical instruments to advance their ambitions of shaping life and work on the basis of freedom, aspiration, values, and individual capabilities. Jac and Ian’s volume provides scholars with a way forward for their work.
Capabilities at Work provides us not only with a deeper understanding of the challenges but also hope for the future – and invites us to actively commit ourselves to shaping a world of work with value and purpose.
Open access