The interaction between social equality and personal assistance: a cross-country analysis

Abstract

Several countries have enacted personal assistance (PA) legislation over the past few decades. Although this policy has been associated with improvements in the quality of life, here we explore how it interacts with the social environment. We examine how the existence of PA legislation influences the effect of social equality on the health and well-being of disabled people. Multilevel analysis was performed using data from the European Social Survey (n = 18,924), including 31 countries and 7 waves of data (2002–2014). Results show that social equality has a positive effect on well-being, but only in countries with PA. The relationship between social equality and well-being, in countries with PA, is explained by increased public participation, satisfaction with the political and economic situation, and a more positive opinion about the health services. Our findings highlight the importance of PA in influencing disability equality and improving disabled people’s well-being.

Points of interest

• The ways in which social equality affects the health and well-being of disabled people is underexplored.

• We analyze how personal assistance shapes the link between social equality and well-being.

• The well-being of disabled people improves when there is more social equality, but this only observed in countries with legislation on personal assistance.

• Social equality is associated with public participation, satisfaction with the political and economic situation in one’s country, and a more positive opinion about the health services, which in turn are all linked with greater well-being.

• This study offers additional information on how social aspects influence the well-being of disabled people, highlighting the importance of personal assistance for disability equality.

Keywords:

• Social factors of health and well-being
• inequality
• personal assistance
• disabled people
• disability equality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Note

There are additional materials in the form of tables and figures that are available in the following link: https://mfr.osf.io/render?url=https%3A%2F%2Fosf.io%2F56zy2%2Fdownload

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), awarded to the first author.