Book: Inequality Reexamined

Overview
Inequality Reexamined offers a systematic reassessment of how inequality should be understood, measured, and judged. Sen advances the argument that conventional income-based approaches are too narrow because they overlook the real opportunities people have to pursue lives they value. The central move is to shift attention from commodities and utilities to "functionings" , the doings and beings that constitute well-being , and to "capabilities," the substantive freedoms to achieve those functionings.

Core argument
Sen challenges the adequacy of income and utility as sole indicators of inequality, insisting that they are often poor proxies for actual life conditions and freedoms. Differences in resources translate into different capabilities depending on personal and social conversion factors, such as health, education, social norms, and public infrastructure. Consequently, identical incomes can mask profound inequalities in what people can actually do or be.

Capabilities and functionings
The capability approach reframes distributive concerns around what persons are effectively able to do and to be, rather than merely what they possess. Functionings are the realized achievements , being healthy, being educated, participating in community life , while capabilities denote the genuine opportunities to realize those achievements. By centering capabilities, inequality assessment becomes sensitive to both outcomes and the real freedom to attain them.

Critique of income-based measures
Sen scrutinizes popular inequality measures and points out conceptual and empirical limitations. Income metrics can conceal inequalities arising from differential needs and varying abilities to convert incomes into valuable functionings. Utility-based approaches face problems of interpersonal comparability and may ignore non-utility-valued dimensions of life. These critiques motivate the search for multidimensional and context-sensitive evaluative spaces.

Normative foundations and measurement
The book develops normative frameworks that incorporate concerns about justice, priority to the worse-off, and plural values. Sen uses both ethical reasoning and formal tools to show how different informational bases , commodities, capabilities, or functionings , lead to different rankings of inequality. He emphasizes that choice of evaluative space is a normative decision that cannot be settled by positive facts alone; nonetheless, rigorous conceptualization can clarify the stakes and trade-offs involved.

Methodological contributions
Sen combines philosophical argumentation with formal measurement insights, exploring how existing indices behave when applied to capability-based data. He discusses comparative methods, dominance relations, and decompositions that can accommodate multidimensionality and heterogeneity. The analysis illustrates how measurement theory and normative criteria can be integrated without reducing complex ethical judgments to mechanical calculations.

Policy implications
Reorienting policy toward capabilities alters priorities for public action. Attention shifts from cash transfers alone to investments that expand real freedoms: health services, education, gender equality, and public amenities that reduce conversion disadvantages. Policies targeted at capability expansion aim not merely to equalize incomes but to ensure that people have substantive opportunities to lead flourishing lives.

Legacy and relevance
Sen's reexamination has had lasting influence on development thinking and welfare economics, helping shape multidimensional indices and debates about human development and social justice. The capability perspective continues to inform evaluations of poverty, inequality, and policy design by stressing that fairness requires looking beyond market incomes to the real freedoms people enjoy.