Making ends meet on disability benefits: How well do programs decommodify?

Abstract

Decommodification, or the ability to maintain a reasonable standard of living when one is unable to participate in the labor market, is the principal objective of disability benefit programs. Prior research, however, has yet to fully investigate how well programs achieve this goal in the real world. This paper provides historical background on disability benefit programs and describes reforms made to these programs cross-nationally in the post-industrial era. The paper next evaluates how well disability benefit programs decommodify by drawing on data that encompasses nine countries and two disability policy regimes from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe. It concludes by discussing policy mechanisms to improve the decommodification objective of disability benefit programs, while presenting an agenda for future research.