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Essay on Rehabilitation of Disabled Population
To be labeled disabled, one must have some health condition that limits the ability to work. But disability also has a social context. Work limitations can be offset by either job changes or changes in some of the activities of the job one held at the time of onset of the work limitation. Burkhauser and Kim show that accommodation of that sort by private employers in the United States significantly lengthened the time until their work-impaired employees left the firm.
Alternatively, rehabilitation therapy together with government-sponsored transition jobs can help overcome work limitations. But social policy can also discourage work and accelerate the disability process. By cushioning the blow of poor health, transfer benefits may also provide a comfortable alternative to work. But that kind of medicine has a potentially dangerous side effect. It can encourage the worker to lose the determination to overcome health impairment and continue working. And as with all medicine, an overdose acts as a poison.
To understand the process to disability one must know not only the medical but also the social context in which that process unfolds. In general, disabled workers were able-bodied for most of their work life. Thus, for most such workers, the transition from able-bodied to disabled begins with a health impairment that restricts to some degree their ability to work on a job they hold. At that point, the movement to disability is significantly affected by the options such workers have. The greater the share of wage earnings the disability system replaces and the higher the probability that the worker will meet the criteria for those benefits, the faster the transition will take place. The employer's behavior also effects that decision. Health impairments can affect productivity on the job, and unless accommodations are made, that can result in pressure on the worker to leave.....
