UNDERSTANDING THE NORMS FOR SHAPING FAMILY FORMATION TRAJECTORIES IN GHANA WITH THE CAPABILITY APPROACH

This paper employs Amartya Sen’s capability approach to examine the Ghanaian family formation trajectories from a qualitative point of view. The capability approach, developed in the 1970s and early 1980s, with widespread application in several domains of abstraction, is a broad normative framework for understanding human well-being and development. Based on in-depth field interviews, we explore the norms and preferences, the choices and decision-making processes, timing as well as constraints embedded in the family formation process. The analyses draw attention to the concepts of ‘ambivalence’ and ‘agency’ which are important in smoothening the difficulties actors encounter in pursuing personal family life