How Disability Income Benefits Affect Employment for Persons with Disabilities in China: An Impairment-Based Work...

Reconciling the potentially conflicting goals between income benefits and employment has become one of the key issues in international disability policy for working-age persons with disabilities. Inspired by the often-criticized experience of disability income benefits having an exclusory effect on employment of persons with disabilities in welfare states by two mechanisms-the disincentive effect of the generous benefits based on the work incapacity of persons with disabilities and the impairment-based work disability assessment for attaining these benefits-this paper aims to examine how disability income benefits affect employment for persons with disabilities in China. Using the life-story interviews method, this paper found that the disability income benefits for persons with disabilities based on their work incapability create "quasi-employment" perceptions among recipients with disabilities. The impairment-based work disability assessment for attaining these benefits excludes persons with disabilities from formal employment but does open them to more informal employment. Implications for policy are discussed.