Constructing a positive identity as a disabled worker through social comparison: The role of stigma and disability characteristics

Abstract

Drawing on 36 semi-structured in-depth interviews with individuals with a variety of disabilities who are active in the labor force, we examine how such individuals construct positive work-related identities at work. The findings show how disabled workers use downward social comparison as a stigma identity management strategy, to compare themselves with individuals with disabilities that they perceive to be more stigmatizing, and how this affects their ability to construct a positive work-related identity. This perception of stigma is influenced by four disability characteristics: its visibility, severity, controllability and whether the disability needs workplace adaptations. Moreover, a range of contextual factors were identified to impact their capacity to construct a positive work-related identity.The disabled workers in this study tend to compare themselves with other disabled workers with disabilities that are more severe, more visible, less controllable and present more constraints for employers. Interestingly, they use the characteristics of one's disability as resources to construct a positive work-related identity, while those characteristics simultaneously stigmatize them as a social group. However, disabled individuals who cannot engage in downward social comparison are put in a marginalized position and struggle to construct positive social identities.

Social Integration of Persons with Disabilities in Ukraine

“…The phenomenon of social stigma is associated with a number of processes and phenomena, including: "social identification of groups", "separation of society", "categorization", "sticking social labels", "social rejection", "loss of social status" and so on. Analysis of works on social stigma (Chen, 2021;Richard, & Hennekam, 2021;Kuper, 2021) shows that most of them in modern life are associated with physical manifestations (illness or disability). Stigmatization of persons with disabilities often manifests itself in a "mild" form, when others show patronage, considering them inferior.…”

How Social Structures Influence the Labour Market Participation of Individuals with Mental Illness: A Bourdieusian Perspective

“…Moreover, these norms remain unquestioned, as individuals with mental illness internalize and legitimize the ableist norms that disadvantage them in their habitus. Existing research shows that both individuals with disabilities (Jammaers et al, 2016; Richard and Hennekam, 2021) and other stigmatized social groups, such as ethnic minorities, challenge their subordinate position in relation to the dominant group (Van Laer and Janssens, 2017). However, the present study shows that in the case of individuals with mental illnesses, even if symbolic violence is expressed through social interactions with the dominant group and the overall lack of workplace adaptations, individuals with mental illness do not challenge the norms imposed by the dominant group but accept them without protest.…”

Far from “Fauda”: creators with disabilities in an established-outsider figuration in the Israeli film and television industries

“…Advocacy may also express what referred to as "the new cultural-social economy," in the sense that creative workers in an advocacy role function as social entrepreneurs by creating new channels of expression that serve an anti-ableism agenda. In conceiving of their impairment as a source of expertise, the advocacy tactic reflects an aspect of Richard and Hennekam's (2021) study, in which disabled workers used the characteristics of one's disability as a resource to construct a positive work-related identity. The advocacy tactic, however, can be counterproductive if it limits the occupational reputation of creators with disabilities to being experts only in advocacy-related content.…”