Introduction

Disabled people in each of the three countries may have lower incomes than their non-disabled peers, because they are not working, because they are working fewer hours, or because they are receiving lower wages. Disabled people also incur additional costs as a result of their disability. These fall into two broad categories: additional expenditure on items which are consumed by everyone, such as fuel and transport, and those which are a specific result of disability-related needs, such as payment for personal or domestic assistance or the purchase of particular items of equipment. This chapter compares income maintenance and personal assistance policies in the three countries, and considers the incomes of disabled people and the standard of living they enjoy, using a variety of monetary and non-monetary indicators of poverty. Although there is very little data on expenditure in any of the three surveys, comparison of the standards of living achieved by disabled and non-disabled people at the same income level provides some indication of the presence, and effect, of additional costs. The analysis also explores links between income and social participation, in order to assess the relative influence of disability and income.

Income maintenance policies for disabled people

Social security policy in Germany has historically been concerned with maintaining status distinctions between different groups, owing to its origins in the trade guilds of skilled workers (Tampke, 1981; Ginsburg, 1992). There is a strong emphasis on the primacy of work, and both the right and the duty to work are enshrined within the constitution. The social security system has always tended to play a secondary role in relation to economic aims and this is argued to be the reason for its relatively late postwar expansion (Clasen and Freeman, 1994). The system is strongly insurance-based, and has a strong orientation to norms of reciprocity and equivalence; there is therefore a strong sense of ‘desert’ as far as benefits are concerned. Benefits received from the system are in strict proportion to former earnings (Wilson, 1993). As might be expected from a system which mirrors labour market divisions, the German social security system is relatively inefficient in reducing inequality, although the actual rates of benefit are more generous than, for instance, Britain (Smeeding et al, 1990).