Rehabilitation service utilization models: changes in the opportunity structure for disabled women

The focus of this paper is the opportunity structure for rehabilitation and subsequent outcome for disabled women, in comparison with disabled men. From evidence cited in the literature the differential provision of rehabilitation and other supportive services to disabled women suggests variation in outcome, based on two analytic service utilization models of rehabilitation: medical and psychosocial. Aggregate trend data (1972 and 1978) were used in the analysis of adult disabled groups, by gender and selected disabling conditions. There are two striking results from the analysis of these data sets. One indicates that receipt of rehabilitation is greatly influenced by sociodemographic factors, particularly gender and age. A detailed examination of the combination effects of gender and other sociodemographic variables shows that there are subtleties, such as an interaction between race and gender and education and gender, as well as between age and gender, that put uneducated, younger, white women at a disadvantage in their access to rehabilitation resources. The analysis of these sociodemographic factors over two points in time, however, demonstrates what can be considered a diffusion of the distinctions of social inequality, probably due to changes in rehabilitation legislation that redefined eligibility criteria for rehabilitation services and expanded programme goals. The second result of note is that neither form of rehabilitation is associated with a positive outcome, in this case ability to work. In the earlier data set (1972), indications were that neither the medical model of rehabilitation nor the psychosocial model were effective in returning the individual to the work role. This was true for both men and women.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)