Marriage: for love,for money…and for time?

Married couples enjoy meaningful economies in time, often choosing to specialize where one spouse focuses on market work and the other on household production and childcare. Using data from the American Time Use Survey 2003–2008, I estimate significant marriage effects upon time use. Most married women gain 33–34 min of leisure each weekday when compared to single women. While marriage does not lead to more leisure for husbands, it allows them to allocate time away from home and towards market work. Lower-income couples work more at home and for pay, and spend less time in leisure than their single counterparts. The temporal and financial gains from marriage for most people are inconsistent with its declining prevalence.     

Sustainable lifestyles for all? Disability equality,sustainability and the limitations of current UK policy

In recent years, various environmental threats have been highlighted in relation to disability. Growing knowledge of the effects of climate change and particular impacts on disabled people have been highlighted by a number of authors, including a recent critique of disabled people’s ‘vulnerability’ with respect to environmental hazard. This article focuses on the issue of citizen involvement with climate change mitigation – and more broadly individual and household-level efforts to reduce our impact on the environment. These more mundane aspects of climate change mitigation, for example through transitions to more sustainable lifestyles, also have significant implications for disabled people. The article argues that disability equality is a key component of sustainability. Limitations are demonstrated in policy designed to address these issues using the example of current UK policy, and it is suggested that policy approaches to sustainability should also be a concern of disability studies.     

Disability,pain and love in Jewish cosmology?

Individuals with disabilities face numerous barriers that limit their inclusion within the Jewish community (Trieschmann 2001 Trieschmann, R. B. 2001. “Spirituality and Energy Medicine.” Journal of Rehabilitation 67 (1): 26–32.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). While many Jewish communities have progressed and moved towards an attitude of ‘acceptance’ and ‘tolerance’ for people with disabilities out of religious obligation, it is often a practice without the spiritual ethical governing force and guiding principles of respect, equality, and human rights (Shatz and Wolowelsky 2004 Shatz, D., and J. B. Wolowelsky. 2004. Mind, Body, and Judaism: The Interaction of Jewish Law with Psychology and Biology. Ktav Publishing House: Yeshiva University Press. [Google Scholar]). People with disabilities are stereotyped as dependent, draining, incompetent, pitiful, victims, freaks, angels, embarrassments, innocent, pathetic, and asexual social burdens (Nario-Redmond 2010 Nario-Redmond, M. R. 2010. “Cultural Stereotypes of Disabled and Non-Disabled Men and Women: Consensus for Global Category Representations and Diagnostic Domains.” British Journal of Social Psychology 49: 471–488.10.1348/014466609X468411 [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). What is lacking is the consideration of people with disabilities as human beings. This injustice is most evident, painful, and damaging at an individual and communal level when it comes to Jewish singles and their pursuit of intimate relationships. A central Jewish value, right, and goal, one that is strongly promoted in Israeli society, is that of committed intimate relationships. However, this value does not apply to people with disabilities     

Disability Studies as Ethnographic Research and Text: Research strategies and roles for promoting social change?

This paper problematises the notion of research production within disability studies by comparing literature on emancipatory research with concepts of reflexivity, authority and empowerment employed within ethnographic research. It critically examines a number of proposals within disability studies on how researchers can stimulate or contribute to processes which improve their respondents life conditions. A variety of strategies for change are discussed within the context of how ethnographers do fieldwork, and write up and disseminate their findings. This discussion also questions the role of the researcher and respondent as 'expert', suggesting that ethnographers should not privilege their own perspectives over that of respondents. It is concluded that the variety of research strategies and roles outlined in this paper need not be mutually exclusive and therefore, that there are a number of different yet complementary ways in which researchers can contribute to the conditions within which self-emancipation flourishes.     

Disability and the anti‐obesity offensive

This paper expands a discussion begun by a fat activist in the UK disability literature to argue that fatness is a disability issue. Some ways in which fat people are oppressed by the same ideological practices and values that oppress (other) disabled people are explored. Fatness has typically been excluded from consideration by disability scholars and in this lacuna an equivalence is drawn between attitudes to fatness and psychological distress within disability studies. In conclusion, it urges discussion on theoretical perspectives of disability that embrace fatness and sees this as a prerequisite to developing strategies that enhance both disability and fat rights.     

Disabled People,Health Professionals and the Social Model of Disability: Can there be a research relationship?

The social model of disability is proposed as an alternative to models that have viewed disability as an individual, rather than a socio-political issue. The use of this model to guide both research theory and practice is proposed in order to equalise research power relationships, and involve and empower disabled people. Health professionals have traditionally reinforced the medical model of disability in both research and practice, and this has been seen as contributing to the oppression and marginalisation of disabled people. If the social model is to achieve wider dissemination, it would appear important to develop a dialogue between disabled people and health professionals. However, because of negative perceptions it can be difficult for health professionals to find an appropriate position in relation to disabled people, research and the social model of disability. While not denying the past, it appears essential to look at ways in which disabled people and health professionals can work together to overcome the oppression and marginalisation that has been linked to the provision of health services.     

Disability and the League of Nations: the Crippled Child’s Bill of Rights and a call for an International Bureau of Information, 1931

In Disability Studies the evolution of conceptual models is often portrayed as linear, with a nineteenth-century charity model shifting to the medical model that dominated disability discourse in the twentieth century. This is then assumed to be largely unchallenged until the 1970s, when an emergent Disability Rights Movement re-framed issues into the social model, from which evolved a rights-based model. This paper documents two early efforts to address disability issues submitted to the League of Nations: the Crippled Child’s Bill of Rights in 1931 and a ‘Memorial’ requesting the establishment of an International Bureau of Information on Crippled Children in 1929. Neither submission achieved its stated goals, yet both reflect early attempts to place disability within wider social contexts.     

Disability and disaster recovery: a tale of two cities?

This paper examines the connections between disability and disaster from a global perspective. Concepts from the research and policy literature are used to distinguish between individual and social models of disability, and between natural hazards and human disasters. These concepts are then employed to investigate data on the response to disabled people's recovery needs in two recent case studies: the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. The analysis combines primary, secondary and tertiary sources to explore disability issues in the reconstruction of inclusive communities and the lessons that may be learned about disaster preparedness in poor communities. The conclusions suggest that more attention should be paid to social model approaches, particularly in understanding global links with poverty, and that disabled people's organisations should be resourced as agents of disaster recovery and preparedness.     

Benefactors and Beneficiaries? Disability and Care to Others

Individuals with disabilities often have limitations that require care from others to increase functioning and facilitate activities of daily living. Despite these care‐receiving needs, evidence suggests people with disabilities are also care givers. This study uses the 2008–2015 American Time Use Survey to examine the association between the presence of sensory, mental or cognitive, physical, or multiple limitations and the likelihood and intensity of time spent in primary child care, secondary child care, adult care, care of nonhouseholders, and support care (housework). Net of socioeconomic characteristics, the authors do not observe consistent differences in predicted child care time by disability status, although men with disabilities spend less time in care to adults and nonhouseholders. The largest difference in predicted care time by disability status occurs in support care. Overall, the results challenge the traditional focus on people with disabilities as only beneficiaries of care to document their role as benefactors.     

Introduction: What does the future promise for work,employment and society?

In introducing this double Special Issue, the authors draw on the articles contained therein to highlight the main areas for consideration in research on the future of work. They present the fast‐paced changes affecting the world of work as offering an opportunity to move towards equality‐inducing growth, while warning of the dangers posed by mismanaged technological change, inequalities (highlighting the persistent and intersectional nature of gender inequality), global supply chains and opportunities for social dialogue. In this light, they also propose policy recommendations focusing on strengthening worker protection and representative institutions, rethinking regulatory frameworks and taxation systems, and ensuring just transitions.     

The court,the couple and the consultant: Is there room for a third position?

This paper describes assessment work for the family courts that is informed by psychodynamic understanding of parents who have abused their children. The aim of this work is to increase the Court's understanding of the parents. The author focuses on the role that she and her colleagues adopt, attempting to find a third position to facilitate curiosity and thinking, trying not to become part of a process of apportioning blame.     

Whose problem? Disability narratives and available identities

In this article, the author demonstrates that contemporary culturaldisability discourses offer few positive resources for peoplewith impairments to draw upon in constructing positive personaland social identities. Examining the emergence of the DisabilityArts Movement in Britain, consideration is given to alternativediscourses developed by disabled people who have resisted thepassive roles expected of them and developed a disability identityrooted in notions of power, respect and control. It is suggestedthat these alternative discourses provide an empowering ratherthan a disabling basis for community development and communityarts practice and should be embraced by workers in these fields.