Introduction
The U.K. is an economically stable country with significantly established social, political, and economic institutions. History concerning the region’s superpower dates back to the colonial era when Britain and other powerful allies owned and controlled most of the republics on earth. As a powerful region, one expects the U.K. to support above-average life among its citizens. For example, owning some of the oldest learning institutions substantially implies that everybody in the land (the U.K.) has access to quality education. Similarly, U.K.’s mature democracy and well-established social systems suggest a steady society where each member fairly enjoys life. However, most of these expectations are not met in the U.K. The country exhibits absolute poverty and many other social issues associated with under-developed states. Persons living with disability are some of the most suffering individuals in the U.K., primarily due to poverty. As discussed in the following work, the issue is resolvable through social workers’ interventions and policy changes.
Connection between Disability and Poverty in the U.K.
Exhibiting disability serves as an automatic exposure to poverty and impoverishment-related challenges in the U.K. Rotarou et al. (2021) provide significantly shocking accounts relating incapacity to poverty. According to Rotarou et al. (2021), some individuals showing the two conditions sit alone in segregated homes or public places until they die due to hunger and other health-linked conditions. Disability and poverty are severe interrelated social issues in the U.K. Rotarou et al. (2021) report that over four million individuals with infirmities in the nation are poor. Moreover, Rotarou et al. (2021) argue that seven million U.K. citizens living in deficiency are disabled or live with an incapacitated person. The situation leads to the argument that approximately half of everybody in paucity is disabled, implying a significant economic imbalance between people with typical bodies and those featuring debility traits. Accordingly, Rotarou et al. (2021) purport that ill-health and poverty among the U.K. residents amount to multiple challenges worth resolving through appropriate policy changes and improved social welfare schemes. Therefore, parties involved in disability management programs must act with speed to improve the situation.
The poverty rate among disabled citizens in the U.K. exceeds that of non-disabled individuals. About 31% of the over 14 million persons with incapacities lived below the poverty line in 2019, relative to 20% of the non-disabled people (Abualghaib et al., 2019). The figure comprises the four million impoverished and incapacitated persons and the three million citizens living with disabled relatives. As per Jagoe et al. (2021), families with a disabled grown-up in the U.K. exhibit increased economic deprivation due to the adult’s inability to provide for self and kin. However, the pain is almost double when the breadwinner becomes incapacitated while having a family with dependents. About 33% of families featuring disability-related poverty in the U.K. have debilitated adults, according to Mont (2019). Disabled children pose increased economic and social pressure to the adults, leading to higher poverty risk (Mont, 2019). Other than requiring special and costly tools such as wheelchairs, incapacitated progenies deny parents the time to work and find resources for the family. Consequently, many children and adults from families with disabled persons live a life way below those without disabilities, causing significant imbalance.
Several factors lead to poverty among the disabled population in the U.K. Abualghaib et al. (2019) provide lack of qualifications due to reduced access to education as one of the significant causes of imbalance. As per Mont (2019), less than 10% of the adults with disabilities in the U.K. lack college degrees, while over 40% of those with “abled” bodies have such a necessary qualification for employment opportunities. The matter allows the advantaged group to dominate the region’s work opportunities, enabling them to afford a modest life (Abualghaib et al., 2019). On the other hand, the less competent disabled citizens survive on begging and the meagre financial support coming from the government. Getting a well-paying job guarantees individuals good houses, reliable means of transport, education, medical care access, and several other life necessities. Lacking education leads to joblessness, dependence, and depression among disabled people in the U.K. Furthermore, job loss makes the population poor, making lack of education a major factor connecting disability to poverty (Abualghaib et al., 2019). Consequently, adopting effective policies that promote education access among disabled citizens can improve the situation.
Job-based discrimination and societal branding make it hard for persons with disability to realize financial stability in the U.K. Jagoe et al. (2021) contend that the few organizations providing job opportunities to the incapacitated inhabitants do not treat them the same way as the other individuals with typical bodies. According to Senjam (2020), many employers engaging persons with special needs in their companies often do it out of pity, not because the individuals qualify. The situation leads to less essential and low-paying tasks for the disabled workers, earning significantly lesser wages or salaries than the “able-bodied” employees. Senjam (2020) reports that wage variation between capacitated and incapacitated workforce exceeds 40%, with the former group taking home the higher figure. Similarly, securing a job for debilitated workers is never easy. The various elements thus make the disadvantaged group unlucky and compelled by life demands. Disabled people failing to secure jobs result in living alone, getting depressed, and dying in isolation. The problem is particularly severe for individuals developing disabilities later in life (Jagoe et al., 2021). Therefore, branding disabled people as incompetent and weak increases their poverty-related plights.
Exhibiting multiple special needs pushes disabled people to higher living costs than non-restricted citizens. Shahat and Greco (2021) reiterate that incapacitated individuals need costly materials to realize stable life. For example, a sight-less person requires expensive spectacles and a walking stick that often gets lost, requiring frequent replacements. Schooling is equally costly for the blind compared to persons with sight ability. While the latter category requires textbooks and teachers, the former team must find braille to learn effectively. Shahat and Greco (2021) claim that the braille for the physically-challenged learners costs significantly high, requiring families with persons lacking sight to spend extra money to make learning possible. Equally, the rising prices of necessary materials such as wheelchairs and the lack of transport systems to support the disabled individuals’ movement necessitate parents to find taxis or private cars to conveniently take their incapacitated children to school (Jagoe et al., 2021). These things are unnecessary to non-disabled learners, making life significantly expensive for those exhibiting disabilities. Consequently, trying to meet the various needs with scarce resources promotes poverty, making life hard.
Social Workers’ Intervention
The social work profession prepares individuals to become social advocates, educators, facilitators, organizers, case managers, and brokers who link families and persons in need to the necessary resources. Therefore, the specialists have a role in averting the poverty problem among populations with disabilities in the U.K. There are several ways social workers can intervene in the present issue. One such method involves advocating education access to children with disabilities. Jagoe et al. (2021) point out that disability among school-going children in Wales, England, and Scotland contributes about 80% to illiteracy. Moreover, the scholars argue that children with disabilities attending schools attain poorer grades and comprehension skills than non-disabled ones. Equally, the disparity in college degree attainment between scholars with incapacitation and those without shows significant disadvantages among the former group. The situation provides a clear need for social workers’ interventions to ensure fair access to education for the citizens with disabilities. The world currently treasures employment and business investments for socio-economic stability, which depends significantly on skills acquisition through training (Jagoe et al., 2021). Therefore, social workers should promote education among disabled children to bridge the poverty gap.
Promoting access to work for disabled people is another area for social workers to act. Heymann, Wong, and Waisath (2021) maintain that the unemployment rate among incapacitated U.K. citizens is about tenfold that amongst the non-disabled population. The problem is severe for persons without academic qualifications relative to those with a college degree. Nonetheless, attaining a university education for the disabled persons is not easy due to various factors, including cost and other inhibitory challenges. Presently, the U.K. government exhibits several programs intended to promote the incapacitated people’s access to quality education, including the “Access to Work” and the “Work Programme” (Heymann, Wong, and Waisath, 2021). Consequently, only ten percent of the qualifying disabled U.K. inhabitants have employment, leading to about 90% unemployment (Macdonald and Morgan, 2021). Contrariwise, Heymann, Wong, and Waisath (2021) provide the unemployment rate among the “able-bodied” inhabitants at about 17%, suggesting a more than 70% gap in unemployment between those with disabilities and those without. Equally, the disability pay gap is a crucial challenge in the U.K., thus provoking the need for social workers’ intervention.
Social workers should advocate better living standards for disabled persons in the U.K. England, Wales, and Scotland have policies providing monthly stipends to citizens with disabilities (Bigby, Tilbury, and Hughes, 2018). Persons qualifying for the financial allowances undergo stringent vetting, excluding many eligible applicants (Bigby, Tilbury, and Hughes, 2018). However, even those benefiting from the government support face several problems, such as continuous reviews that reduce the amount that one receives, even when the individual’s case worsens. The problem mainly affects citizens suffering from mental disabilities (Bigby, Tilbury, and Hughes, 2018). Bigby, Tilbury, and Hughes (2018) argue that insanity and other psychological problems make it hard for disabled persons living alone to respond to the frequent needs assessment forms that prove the need for continued support. Accordingly, the government perceives vulnerable individuals failing to respond to the forms as stable citizens, thus reducing or terminating the aid. Therefore, social workers can intervene by identifying and monitoring all the vulnerable citizens in the region and helping them comply with the government’s requirements for continued support.
Sociological Perspective
Understanding the complex connection between poverty and disability in the U.K. requires the adoption of appropriate sociological perspectives. Bigby, Tilbury, and Hughes (2018) maintain that no social problem exhibits a direct reason or explanation, necessitating multiple interventions. Consequently, the “social drift” and “social model of disability” are two significantly applicable sociological models that can explain the link between poverty and disability in the U.K. The following discussion describes the theory’s application and how sociologists can use the two to demystify the matter.
Social Drift
The social drift philosophy, also known as the drift hypothesis, connects disability to social class. The model covers mental illness as the primary form of disability leading individuals downward the social class. As such, the theory insists that social class hardly causes disability; incapacitation leads to change in individuals’ lives, often from elite life to impoverishment. Such an argument makes the philosophy more applicable in the U.K. situation, where over 70% of the disabilities are congenital, not acquired (Ventriglio et al., 2021). The social drift model contradicts the social causation proposition, which states that low social class contributes to mental disabilities (Ventriglio et al., 2021). Therefore, using the drift hypothesis promises the U.K. social workers to understand how unfair social conditions make it hard for persons with disabilities to fit into the social settings and how to change the situation.
Social Model of Disability
Lastly, the social model of disability maintains that disability is not incompetence. The theory insists that all individuals with incapacities have inborn talents that can compensate for their frailties (Retief and Letšosa, 2018). Accordingly, the concept insists that people are deactivated by societal hurdles, not natural or acquired differences and impairments. Such barriers can assume physical forms, such as buildings without disability-friendly passages and accessible lavatories. Equally, people’s attitudes towards incapacitated persons, leading to employment discrimination, act as emotional forms of barriers causing disabilities. For example, Retief and Letšosa (2018) accuse the mentality that incapacitated people cannot do certain things of the rampant unemployment challenges leading to impoverishment among the disabled people. Therefore, the drift philosophy and social model of disability offer significantly reliable explanations for the link between disability and poverty that social workers can use to resolve the matter.
Conclusion
The U.K. is a developed economy with many attractive economic, political, and social elements. The region’s many years of socio-economic stability grants it substantially rare capacities that many developing economies lack. However, the severe problem of poverty among disabled people in the region creates a bad image. Disability, either natural or acquired, serves as an automatic sentence to abject poverty among U.K. citizens. The issue is explainable using the social drift and social model of disability philosophies. Social workers in the country can utilize these models to cause transformation by informing policy changes.
Reference List
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