
Capability approach
CALY-SWE is grounded in the capability approach that was proposed by Amartya Sen.
The basic idea is that the welfare of individuals should be judged by what capabilitys they have access to. Capabilities are the opportunities that people have in their lifes, and functionings are chosen capabilities.
By choosing from the available capabilities, individuals can realize their life according to their own values and wishes and the higher the capabilites, the higher the opportunity for a flourishing life.
The goal of a society should be to ensure that all members have access to a capability level that is necessary to lead a flour life.
The CALY-SWE measure
The CALY-SWE measure consists of six capability dimensions on each three levels that were selected by a Delphi panel with representants of the Swedish civil society.
- Finance & housing
- Health
- Occupation
- Social relation
- Security
- Political & civil rights

This results in 729 different quality-of-life situations. Each of these will have a quality weight between 0 and 1 attached. The lifetime of a person can then be weighted with this weight. For example, a person living in a situation with weight 0.7 for 2 years has a capability-adjusted lifetime of 1.4.
History
- 2022 Data collections for weight study, DHR study, and distribution study
- 2020 Delphi process with stakeholder from Swedish civil society to select relevant capabilities
- 2019 Kaspar Meili starts PhD in Umeå with the goal of developing the measure and weights
- 2018 Forte supportet the project
- 2017 A first article that outlines CALYs in Sweden is published (Månsdotter et al., 2017)
- 2016 We conducted a preliminary study on ranking capabilities (Månsdotter et al., 2020)
- 2013 Start of the CALY project , initiated by a interdisciplinary network of researchers from different universities in Sweden
Funding
The Swedish research council for health, working life, and welfare - Forte.