see attached
Disability as Inequality: Social Disparities, Health Disparities, and Participation in Daily Activities Disability as Inequality: Social Disparities, Health Disparities, and Participation in Daily Activities Carrie L. Shandra Social Forces, Volume 97, Number 1, September 2018, pp. 157-191 (Article) Published by Oxford University Press For additional information about this article Access provided at 10 Jan 2020 23:19 GMT from New School University https://muse.jhu.edu/article/703508 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/703508 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disability as Inequality Disability as Inequality: Social Disparities, Health Disparities, and Participation in Daily Activities Carrie L. Shandra, State University of New York at Stony Brook Individuals with disabilities experience lower education levels, lower employmentrates, fewer household resources, and poorer health than people without disabil-ities. Yet, despite comprising more than one-eighth of the US population, people with disabilities are seldom integrated into sociological studies of inequality. This study uses time use as a lens through which to understand one type of inequality between working-aged people with and without disabilities: participation in daily activities. It also tests whether social disparities (as suggested by the social model of disability) or health disparities (as suggested by the medical model of disability) explain a larger percentage of participation differences. I first consider if disability predicts daily time in market work, nonmarket work, tertiary (health-related) activities, and leisure—net of health and sociodemographic characteristics. Next, I utilize Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to assess the relative contribution of these character- istics in explaining time differences. Results from the American Time Use Survey indi- cate that adults with disabilities spend less time than adults without disabilities in market work and more time in tertiary activities and leisure. There is no difference in nonmarket time. Health accounts for the largest percentage of the explained compo- nent of tertiary time differences, but depending on the choice of predictors, sociode- mographic characteristics account for as much—or more—of the explained component of differences in market and leisure time. Results indicate the importance of disentangling disability from health in sociological studies of inequality. They also support a hybrid disability model in suggesting that both health and sociodemo- graphic characteristics determine how disability shapes daily life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This paper benefited from conversations with Dennis Hogan, Vicki Freedman, Tay McNamara, Sarah Flood, Dara Shifrer, Angela Frederick, Jennifer Pearson, Rachel Fish, Sean Clouston, and Laura Senier. All errors are my own. The research reported herein was performed pursuant to a grant from the US Social Security Administration (SSA) funded as part of the Disability Research Consortium. The opinions and conclusions expressed are solely those of the author and do not repre- sent the opinions or policy of SSA or any agency of the federal government. Neither the US govern- ment nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of the contents of this report. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply endorse- ment, recommendation, or favoring by the US government or any agency thereof. Direct correspon- dence to Carrie L. Shandra, Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4356; e-mail:
[email protected]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail:
[email protected]. Social Forces 97(1) 157–192, September 2018 doi: 10.1093/sf/soy031 Advance Access publication on 6 June 2018 Disability as Inequality 157 mailto:
[email protected] The study of disability has been largely peripheral to the study of inequality within the discipline of sociology (Green and Barnartt 2016)—an oversight that Green and Gerschick (2016) call “inexplicable given the life circumstances of people with disabilities which rival those of the most disadvantaged groups in the United States.” People with disabilities experience lower levels of educational attainment, lower rates of employment, and fewer household resources than people without disabilities (Brault 2012; Erickson, Lee, and Schrader 2016). They also comprise a sizeable percentage of the population. Between 12.6 per- cent (Erickson, Lee, and Schrader 2016) and 18.7 percent (Brault 2012) of peo- ple in the United States are estimated to have some sort of disability— comparable to the percentage of people who are either Black or Hispanic (Humes, Jones, and Ramirez 2011). The question of how to integrate disability into analyses of inequality is not new (Green and Barnartt 2016; Thomas 2007). Like race, class, and gender, dis- ability has implications for discrimination, status attainment, intergenerational mobility, and stigma (Ameri et al. 2017; Green et al. 2005; Janus 2009). Unlike race, class, and gender, disability fits less neatly into sociological models of ascribed or achieved statuses: Depending on the nature of the impairment, peo- ple can transition in and out of disability over the life course (Barnartt 2010; Mann and Honeycutt 2016). Disability is both predicted by (Zhang, Hayward, and Yu 2016) and predictive of (Loprest and Maag 2007) social disparities. As such, approaches to the study of disability and the disablement process remain contested (Thomas 2007). Nonetheless, the disadvantages faced by people with disabilities are well documented, unequivocal, and omitted from most sociological research. This study contributes to the literature on disability and inequality by investigating how disability shapes everyday life—specifically, time spent in daily activities. Time use is an advantageous lens through which to evaluate inequality because it is a bounded resource and time allocated to one activity carries opportunity costs of not engaging in other activities (Williams, Masuda, and Tallis 2016). Likewise, time use also signals activity participation—including the types of activities that are crucial for inclusion and independent living (Graf 2008; Suh 2016). Understanding why people with and without disabilities spend their time differently is one way to understand how disability