The Disability–Employability Divide: Bottlenecks to Equal Opportunity
20 Pages Posted: 2 Aug 2014 Last revised: 12 Dec 2018
Date Written: September 1, 2014
Abstract
Joseph Fishkin’s new book, Bottlenecks, reinvigorates the concept of equal opportunity by simultaneously engaging with its complications and attempting to simplify its ambitions. Fishkin describes bottlenecks as narrow spaces in the opportunity structure through which people must pass if they hope to reach a range of opportunities on the other side. A significant component of the American opportunity structure that Bottlenecks leaves largely unexplored, however, relates to people with disabilities. This Review applies Fishkin’s theory to explore how disability law creates and perpetuates bottlenecks that keep people with disabilities from achieving a greater degree of human flourishing. In particular, disability policy’s opportunity structure features a conceptual disability–employability divide that ultimately prevents people with disabilities from reaching a wider array of opportunities. Fishkin’s book, in concert with this Review, introduces new and inventive ways of reimagining and implementing structural solutions to these bottlenecks.
Keywords: equal opportunity, disability, benefits, employment, bottlenecks, administrative law, welfare, social security disability insurance, social security income, social security administration, work-first initiatives
JEL Classification: A12, A14, D60, D61, D62, D63, H61, H62, J30, J31, J38, J70, J71, J78, K31, K39
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation