Evidence suggests that intangible components of wellbeing like human recognition impacts development. For example, access to resources depends heavily on norms prevalent in domains in which human recognition flows with influence on how women are valued and treated.
We propose an index of multidimensional Human Recognition Deprivation (HRD), which measures to what extent individuals (e.g., women) are viewed and valued as human beings.
Based on Castleman’s Theory of Human Recognition and Economic Development, we employ the Alkire-Foster method of multidimensional poverty counting to construct a HRD index. The Index is based on indicators of humiliation, dehumanization, violence, and lack of autonomy within three domains of interaction namely: the self, household, and community domains. Similar to multidimensional poverty, we extract the deprivation headcount ratio, deprivation intensity, and the overall deprivation index.
The Alkire-Foster method allows the identification of human recognition deprivation within and across domains. The methodology has a range of robust properties including decomposability by sub-groups. As a policy tool, it can allow policy investigators to set different domain cut-offs and weights to identify crucial policy fields and populations for intervention. We develop the index for women using data from Malawi.

Dr. Ebelechukwu (Ebele) Maduekwe is an Alumni of Technische Universität München (TUM). She holds a doctorate degree from the Chair of Land management and a MSc. degree in Life Science Economics and Policy from TUM. Her main research area includes sustainable rural development, poverty, wellbeing and resource economics/access through human recognition for women.

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