Description
- Abstract:
- Over the past forty years, people with disabilities have experienced dramatic social change. One of the strongest indicators of their changing status is the increase in college attendance. Despite these gains, the fact that people with disabilities were more likely to be employed twenty years ago than they are today highlights the unevenness of their inclusion. Motivated by the observation that factors contributing to disability inequality are resistant to social change, this study attempts to understand the experiences of labor market inequality for people with disabilities. I identify the actors and mechanisms shaping labor market experiences of people with disabilities and contributing to disability labor market inequality. I also present a comprehensive portrait of how well people with disabilities achieve economic survival in a climate of widespread joblessness. In a flexible, multi-method research design, I integrate in-depth interviews with several types of statistical analyses using the 1996, 2001, and 2004 SIPP panels and the 1969-2006 NHIS. There are three key findings of this dissertation. First, a quarter of the disability earnings gap for full-time workers is due to systematic differences in the occupations held by workers with and without disabilities. Interview data indicate that employer discrimination and disability benefit rules play an important role in influencing the kinds of work people with disabilities choose. Second, social changes yielded a dramatic increase of college attendance across successive cohorts of people with disabilities; at the same time, those born later in the 20th century -- those best positioned to enjoy improved access to mainstream education and civil rights protections -- are less likely to work than those born earlier. Interviews show that expanded access to schooling for people with disabilities exposes more people to mainstream educational and career aspirations, aspirations unmatched by contemporary labor market realities. Third, unearned income, primarily disability-related, is an important means by which both jobless and employed adults with disabilities achieve economic survival. Eighty percent of jobless adults and sixty percent of employed adults with disabilities receive unearned income. Despite the large number receiving unearned income, a considerable share of both jobless and employed adults with disabilities experience material hardship.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2011)
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Citation
Drew, Julia AR,
"Disability, Employment and Economic Survival"
(2011).
Sociology Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z01R6NRZ
