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

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.