500 WORDS

Disability and Unemployment

Student’s Name

University Affiliation

Section 1

The three articles that below show a positivist point of view when it comes to the issue of disability and unemployment.

Morten et al., (2012) conducted a study where they sort to explore the association between unemployment and an increased risk of receiving a disability pension. A cohort of 7,985 that comprised of 40-42 year olds was followed for a period of 18 years in the various national registers. The associations between unemployment and receiving a disability pension was estimated using a discrete time multilevel logistic regressions and clustering individuals by municipality. The results showed a crude odds ratio that was significant where the odds of receiving a disability pension after unemployment was 1.42 (95% 1.1-1.8).

Lundin et al., (2015) reports that people with disabilities and are unemployed have higher probability of receiving a disability pension over a given period of time. Lundin et al., points out that people with disabilities tend to enjoy the privilege of various government funded programs and other schemes that support them like the disability pensions. Despite their lack of employment, a basic disability pension helps them survive. A similar observation is made by Kjellberg et al., (2016) who explores the association between disability pensions and long-term unemployment during a seven year follow up.

In conclusion, it can be stated that, disability exposes a person to a higher risk of disability pension which is a positive thing in terms of the economic welfare of the disabled persons. If the disabled persons are able to have access to these resources, then it is a positive thing towards their lives.

Section 2

The following three articles present an anti-positivist view when it comes to the issue of unemployment and disability.

James and Sarah (2016) report that there is an association between unemployment with various health factors like stress, depression, unhealthy behaviors and reduced care. Data that was collected represented the African American populations, the non-Hispanic whites where n=7970 and the mean of the years was 24.7 years. The results showed that the percentage of life disabled from the age of 40 years was greater with high unemployment for some groups. All these results were statistically significant. A high lifetime unemployment was associated with a larger proportion of later life disability and a lower life expectancy.

Barendregt (2015) and Blanchard et al., (2014) both use interviews where they target people with disabilities and present them with questionnaires on their experiences in the job market. A significant majority in both of the studies report discrimination when it comes to seeking employment. Almost half of the respondents report being denied of an opportunity due to their disability even in situations where clearly they deserved it on their merit.

These three articles try to show the association between unemployment and disability, where many of the people who suffer from discrimination when it comes to employment, are those who have some form of disability. This heavily contributes to the poor economic conditions that disabled people tend to experience in the course of their lives.

References

Barendregt, J. J. (2015). Disability-adjusted Life Years (DALYs) and Disability-adjusted Life Expectancy (DALE). Determining Health Expectancies, 247-261. doi:10.1002/0470858885.ch13

Blanchard, O. J., & Galí, J. (2014). Labor Markets and Monetary Policy: A New-Keynesian Model with Unemployement. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.920959

Kjellberg, K., Andersson, T., & Hemmingsson, T. (2016). O11-2 Associations between physical workload and early exits from labour market due to long-term sickness absence, disability pension and long-term unemployment during a 7-year follow-up in a general working population. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 73(Suppl 1), A22.2-A22. doi:10.1136/oemed-2016-103951.59

Laditka, J. N., & Laditka, S. B. (2016). Unemployment, disability and life expectancy in the United States: A life course study. Disability and Health Journal, 9(1), 46-53. doi:10.1016/j.dhjo.2015.08.003

Lundin, A., Kjellberg, K., Leijon, O., Punnett, L., & Hemmingsson, T. (2015). The Association Between Self-Assessed Future Work Ability and Long-Term Sickness Absence, Disability Pension and Unemployment in a General Working Population: A 7-Year Follow-Up Study. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 26(2), 195-203. doi:10.1007/s10926-015-9603-4

Støver, M., Pape, K., Johnsen, R., Fleten, N., Sund, E. R., Claussen, B., & Bjørngaard, J. H. (2012). Unemployment and disability pension-an 18-year follow-up study of a 40-year-old population in a Norwegian county. BMC Public Health, 12(1). doi:10.1186/1471-2458-12-148