Disability, work, and welfare

Colin Barnes and Geof Mercer
Additional contact information
Colin Barnes: University of Leeds, UK, c.barnes@leeds.ac.uk
Geof Mercer: University of Leeds, UK

Work, Employment & Society, 2005, vol. 19, issue 3, 527-545

Abstract: This article engages with debates relating to social policy and disabled people’s exclusion from the British labour market. Drawing on recent developments from within the disabled people’s movement, in particular, the concept of independent living and the social model of disability, and the associated disability studies literature, a critical evaluation of orthodox sociological theories of work, unemployment, and under-employment in relation to disabled people’s exclusion from the workplace is provided. It is argued that hitherto, analyses of work and disability have failed to address in sufficient depth or breadth the various social and environmental barriers that confront disabled people. It is suggested therefore that a reconfiguration of the meaning of work for disabled people - drawing on and commensurate with disabled people’s perspectives as expressed by the philosophy of independent living - and a social model analysis of their oppression is needed and long overdue.

Keywords: barriers; disability; independent living; social exclusion; social model; work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017005055669 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:19:y:2005:i:3:p:527-545

DOI: 10.1177/0950017005055669

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().