Amartya Sen facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Amartya Sen
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Sen in 2012
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Amartya Kumar Sen
3 November 1933 |
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Notable work
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Eva Colorni
(m. 1978; died 1985)Emma Rothschild
(m. 1991) |
| Children | 4, including Nandana and Antara |
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| Doctoral advisor | Joan Robinson |
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Amartya Kumar Sen (born 3 November 1933) is a famous Indian economist and philosopher. He has taught and worked in England and the United States since 1972. In 1998, Sen won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He received this award for his important work on how to improve the well-being of people and societies, a field called welfare economics.
Sen has also made big contributions to understanding how societies make choices, how to achieve fairness in economics and society, and why famines happen. He has studied how people make decisions, how countries develop, and how to measure the well-being of people. Currently, he is a professor at Harvard University. In 1999, he received India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. In 2020, he was given the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for his work on global fairness and fighting inequality.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Amartya Sen was born on November 3, 1933, in a Bengali family in Santiniketan, which was then part of British India. The famous writer and Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore gave him his name, Amartya, which means "immortal" or "heavenly." His family came from areas that are now in Bangladesh. His father, Ashutosh Sen, was a chemistry professor. His mother, Amita Sen, was the daughter of a well-known scholar of ancient India.
Sen started school in Dhaka in 1940. In 1941, he moved to Patha Bhavana in Santiniketan for his school education. This school had modern ideas, like not focusing too much on tests. It also valued different cultures from around the world. In 1951, he went to Presidency College in Calcutta. He studied economics and mathematics there. While at college, he faced a serious illness, oral cancer, but he recovered after treatment.
In 1953, he moved to Trinity College, Cambridge in England to continue his economics studies. He did very well there, finishing at the top of his class. Even though he was still a PhD student, he was offered a job as the first head of the Economics Department at the new Jadavpur University in Calcutta. He was only 22 years old, making him the youngest person to lead that department. He worked there from 1956 to 1958.
Sen was also given a special fellowship at Trinity College, which allowed him to study any subject for four years. He chose to study philosophy. He felt that studying philosophy was important because many of his interests in economics, like understanding fairness and inequality, are connected to philosophical ideas. He had been interested in philosophy since his college days.
Important Research Work
Amartya Sen's research has changed how we think about many big problems in the world. He looks at how people make choices, why poverty exists, and how to help countries grow.
How Societies Make Choices
Sen's early work in the 1960s and 1970s helped develop something called "social choice theory." This theory looks at how a group of people can make decisions when everyone has different preferences. Another economist, Kenneth Arrow, had shown that it's very hard for voting systems to be perfectly fair when there are many options. Sen's work helped explain when Arrow's ideas apply and how to make social choice theory better.
Why Famines Happen
In 1981, Sen wrote a very important book called Poverty and Famines. In this book, he argued that famines don't just happen because there isn't enough food. He said they also happen because of unfair ways food is shared. He explained that the Bengal famine in India was caused by rising food prices due to an economic boom in cities. This meant that millions of poor rural workers couldn't afford food, even if there was food available.
Sen famously wrote that "no famine has ever taken place ... in a functioning democracy." This means that countries with working democracies, where people have a voice, are better at preventing famines. His work on famines has greatly influenced the "Human Development Report" by the United Nations Development Programme. This report measures how well countries are doing based on things like health, education, and living standards, not just money.
What Does "Equality" Really Mean?
Sen introduced a new idea called "capability" in his 1979 article "Equality of What?". He believes that governments should be judged by what their citizens are actually able to do and be. For example, having the "right to vote" isn't enough if people can't get to the polling station or don't have enough education to understand the issues.
Sen argues that people need "functionings" to truly have capabilities. These functionings can be simple things like having enough food or complex things like having access to education. When these basic abilities are met, people can truly make their own choices. Each society needs to decide what minimum capabilities it wants to guarantee for its people.
Why Are So Many Women "Missing"?
In 1990, Sen wrote a thought-provoking article called "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing." He looked at how unequal rights between boys and girls in some developing countries, especially in Asia, led to more deaths among women. This happens because girls might not get the same food, healthcare, or attention as boys. His work highlighted a serious global issue.
Development as Freedom
In 1999, Sen wrote another influential book, Development as Freedom. He argued that true development isn't just about a country's wealth (like GDP). Instead, it's about increasing the real freedoms that people have. He was inspired by a sad event he saw as a child: a poor man was attacked because he had to go to a dangerous area to find work. This showed Sen how a lack of economic freedom could lead to terrible outcomes.
Sen described five types of freedoms that are important for development:
- Political freedoms: The ability for people to have a say in their government.
- Economic facilities: Access to resources and fair markets.
- Social opportunities: Access to things like healthcare and education.
- Transparency guarantees: Being able to trust and understand how things work in society.
- Protective security: Having social safety nets to protect people from extreme poverty.
Sen believes these freedoms are not just the goals of development, but also the ways to achieve it. He showed how these freedoms are connected. For example, good education and health (social opportunities) help people make better economic choices and participate in politics.
The Idea of Justice
In 2009, Sen published The Idea of Justice. In this book, he shared his own ideas about what justice means. He suggested that we should focus on making things fairer in the real world, rather than just thinking about perfect, ideal societies. He was inspired by thinkers like Adam Smith. Sen emphasized the importance of public discussion and focusing on people's capabilities, including universal human rights, to make societies more just.
Career Highlights
Sen started his teaching career at Jadavpur University in 1956. From 1957 to 1963, he was a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He also spent time as a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, where he met many famous economists. He taught at the Delhi School of Economics from 1963 to 1971. During this time, he wrote one of his most important books, Collective Choice and Social Welfare.
He joined the London School of Economics in 1971 and then taught at the University of Oxford from 1977 to 1988. In 1987, Sen moved to Harvard University. In 1998, he became the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, making him the first Asian person to lead an Oxbridge college. In 2004, he returned to Harvard.
In 2007, he was chosen to lead a group planning to restart Nalanda University, an ancient center of learning in India. He became its first chancellor in 2012.
Memberships and Associations
Amartya Sen has been the president of many important economic groups, including the Econometric Society and the American Economic Association. He is often called "the Conscience of the profession" because of his work on poverty, human development, and fairness. He has also worked with Oxfam, a charity that helps people around the world.
Media and Culture
There are several documentaries about Amartya Sen's life and work. One is called Amartya Sen: A Life Re-examined, and another is The Argumentative Indian, named after one of his books. His portraits are displayed in famous places like the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Personal Life and Beliefs
Sen has been married three times. He has two daughters, Antara and Nandana, from his first marriage. He had two more children, Indrani and Kabir, with his second wife, Eva Colorni, who sadly passed away from cancer. In 1991, he married Emma Rothschild, who is a history professor at Harvard.
The Sens live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also have a home in Cambridge, England. He enjoys reading and discussing ideas with people. Amartya Sen is an atheist. He has noted that ancient Indian texts, including Sanskrit writings, have a long history of discussing atheism and materialism.
Awards and Honours
Amartya Sen has received over 90 honorary degrees from universities worldwide. Some of his major awards include:
- Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1998
- Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, 1999
- Honorary citizenship of Bangladesh, 1999
- Honorary Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, UK, 2000
- National Humanities Medal, 2011
- Order of the Aztec Eagle, 2012
- Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour, 2013
- Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science, 2017
- Bodley Medal, 2019
- Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels, 2020
- Princess of Asturias Award, 2021
See Also
In Spanish: Amartya Sen para niños
- Abhijit Banerjee
- Equality of autonomy, a concept of equality posed by Sen
- Feminist economics
- Human Development Index
- List of feminist economists
- Kerala model, an expression or concept observed and introduced by Sen
- Instrumental and value rationality, describing some of his differences with John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and James Gouinlock.
