Search results for ‘Subject term:"physical disabilities"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 2 of 2
From Incapacity Benefit to Employment and Support Allowance: social sorting, sickness and impairment, and social security
- Authors:
- GROVER Chris, PIGGOTT Linda
- Journal article citation:
- Policy Studies, 31(2), March 2010, pp.265-282.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
This commentary examines the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) as a replacement for the main income replacement benefit, Incapacity Benefit (IB), for sick and/or disabled people in Britain. The authors argue that the process of claiming ESA, a process that is dependent upon medicalised perceptions of capability to work and which is aimed at managing the perceived economic and social costs of sick and disabled people, is a means of sorting sick and/or disabled people into subgroups of claimants. The authors go on to discuss the implications of their observations with regard to explanations of the disadvantages that sick and/or disabled people face and their implications for the income of such people. The authors conclude that because the shift from IB to ESA is premised upon a number of mistaken assumptions (such as the majority of claimants abusing the system by overstating the effect of their sickness or disability), it represents a retrograde development for people who are sick and/or who have impairments, potentially leaving a lot more claimants financially impoverished than under the old IB system.
Employment change and the role of the medical home for married and single-mother families with children with special health care needs
- Authors:
- DERIGNE Leaanne, PORTERFIELD Shirley
- Journal article citation:
- Social Science and Medicine, 70(4), February 2010, pp.631-641.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
The authors hypothesised that whether or not a child with special health care needs usual source of care meets the criteria for a “medical home” influences parents’ employment decisions. This study included 38,569 children with special health care needs from birth to age 17 surveyed in the 2005-2006 US National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs. The employment model is estimated using multinomial logistic regression with the choice of a parent to maintain current employment, reduce hours, or stop working as the dependent variable. Independent variables were those characterising the needs of the child, the resources of the family, and the socio-demographic characteristics of the family. Components of the medical home variable included: having a usual source of care; family centred care; care coordination services; and receipt of needed referrals. Half of the children met criteria in all four facets. The relative risk of a parent choosing to cut their hours rather than maintain them decreased by 51% if the child had a medical home. The relative risk of choosing to stop work rather than not change decreased by about 64%. Care coordination services in particular reduced the odds of changing employment status. The authors conclude that the medical home is a moderating factor in parental decisions concerning change in employment status.