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Disability policies and public views on work disability...

(underlying) level of work disability and a country-specific way of reporting. We take
advantage of unique data on disability vignettes from comparable U.S. and European
surveys. We identify rating styles (reporting heterogeneity) based on how respondents
characterize the severity level of the same vignette person with a given degree of work
limitation. This is known as the anchoring vignette approach, which has become a
popular empirical strategy in health and social science research (King et al., 2004).
We find evidence consistent with an effect of disability policy generosity on
perceptions. Different policy dimensions affect disability classifications in different
ways. The most influential policy dimensions are policy coverage, medical assessment,
and vocational assessment. Our findings have important implications for disability
policy design and delivery.
1.2 Disability Policy and Disability Perception

In this section, we compare the disability policies in the United States and seven
European countries, and briefly discuss the mechanisms of how individuals perceive
work limitations under different policy environments.
We conceptualize public policy as the outcome of a process that balances individuals’
wants for service provision with the available societal resources’ given preferences
(ranking over priorities). In turn, differences in disability policies across countries with
similar standards of living should reflect differences in the public’s (consensus) views
regarding the relative importance and the appropriate type of work disability support.
For simplicity, economists often consider preferences underlying a policy choice as
invariant. However, individuals’ attitudes regarding the objects of a policy are likely to
be influenced by social norms, culture, and tradition as discussed in the Introduction. If
so, then we expect policies to also shape individuals’ perceptions, especially those that
have been in place for extended time periods.
To investigate this hypothesis, we test empirically whether disability policies impact
how individuals characterize disability cases across countries. Disability policy may
provide knowledge—in the form of references or thresholds—on how to characterize
or classify work limitations. For example, in a disability welfare state that traditionally
recognizes various extents of work limitations, the society members may rate a health
problem on a wider (more differentiated) severity spectrum.
In contrast, in more laissez-faire society disability policy may be very strict, offering
little support to work-limited individuals and only to the most severe disability cases
that have little residual work capacity. Under such a disability regime, people will get
the impression that disability support is very limited and that mild or moderate health
impairments are neither defined as “disabling” nor qualifying for public support. As
a result, members in these societies likely apply a higher threshold when classifying
disability.
OECD (2003) provides a classification for disability compensation policy for all its
member countries. For every country, 10 disability policy dimensions are evaluated:
coverage, minimum disability level, disability levels for full benefits, maximum benefit
level, permanence of benefits, medical assessment, vocational assessment, sickness
benefit level, sickness benefit duration, and unemployment benefit level and duration.
OECD scores the generosity of each dimension of disability policy on a scale from 0
to 5, with 5 being the highest score (most generous) and 0 (least generous) the lowest.
The OECD measures are designed to capture not only the formal disability program
rules but also their implementation and administration. Table 1 provides a detailed
overview of the classifications of the disability compensation policy dimensions. We
also list the eight countries in our analytical sample according to their scoring in each
policy dimension. Below, we provide a comparative analysis for each policy aspect.
1.2.1 Policy 1: Coverage
Nordic countries generally provide full population coverage for pubic disability benefit
programs, regardless of the individual’s work history and household income. In terms
of the OECD scoring, Sweden scores 5 for having the most extensive coverage which

44 International Journal of Population Studies 2017, Volume 3, Issue 1