Analysing the distribution of capabilities in the UK workforce amidst technological change
Creators: name: Xia, Shuting
name: Soffia, Magdalena
name: Skordis, Jolene
name: Zhou, Xingzuo
name: Leiva-Granados, Rolando
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025

description: Workplaces are rapidly adopting new technologies, raising questions about how our workforce can navigate this transition positively.

Sen’s capability framework, adapted by Nussbaum (2000) for use in operational research, highlights the conditions required for human flourishing and the freedom of individuals to choose specific ways of living ("functionings") that contribute to their preferred state of being (Sen, 1985). Sen and Nussbaum’s capability approach considers the capability of individuals to achieve “outcomes that they have reason to value” (Sen, 1999, p. 291).

Rather than placing weight solely on how individual choices determine life satisfaction, happiness or earnings, this framework focuses on the freedoms individual are given to pursue these choices. Thus, in the context of work, capabilities are likely to be a core determinant of resilience to change, including the rapid technological changes we are currently seeing. Towards this, elsewhere in the Pissarides Review, we reviewed the literature on capabilities to ask what it can tell us about work (Soffia et al., 2023). However, little is known about the distribution of capabilities in the UK workplace or in any other working environment. 

In this paper, we measure this distribution of capabilities in the UK workforce and comment on the unequal distribution of what we consider to be a potentially important measure of freedoms and resilience to transition. To this purpose, the study employs the ICECAP-A questionnaire (Al-Janabi et al., 2012), a preference-based measure of capabilities, rooted in Sen’s (1993) capability approach. ICECAP-A comprises five domains including the freedom to feel stable, attached, autonomous, and to have a sense of achievement and enjoyment. Using survey data from over 5000 employees, we look at the distribution of capabilities across workers, considering how that distribution differs when exposed to different types of technology and controlling for factors such as institutional and management practices.

This study reveals significant disparities in capability levels across age, ethnicity, relationship status, occupational level and industrial sector. Older employees, those partnered, in higher occupational roles and in the professional, scientific and technical sector generally report higher capabilities, and employees from Asian backgrounds report significantly lower capabilities than their counterparts from white ethnic backgrounds. Institutional factors, including HR philosophy, employer-provided training, and access to formal representative structures, are positively associated with capabilities.

Our analyses further highlight that the trend in the correlation between socioeconomic factors and capabilities is disrupted by technological exposure, particularly exposure to newer technologies such as wearables, AI and robotics. The findings underscore the importance of supportive institutional frameworks to foster a sense of freedom to live a life employees value. Targeted policies may also be needed to support an equitable distribution of capability across the workforce, as a way of developing resilience to negative consequences of technological transition.