Suchergebnisse

Examines economic and social disparities, political participation, gender and disability gaps in political involvement, and fight against discrimination; based on national telephone surveys with 1,242 citizens of voting age in the 1998 and 1,002 in the 2000 elections; US.

We examine whether people with disabilities are part of the political mainstream, or remain outsiders in important respects, by studying political participation and the underexplored topic of how disability relates to attitudes toward politics. We analyze new disability measures on the 2008 and 2010 Current Population Surveys voting supplements, and two other nationally representative surveys for 2006 and 2007. Citizens with disabilities remain less likely than nondisabled citizens to vote. While there are few differences in political preferences and party affiliations, people with disabilities tend to favor a greater government role in employment and healthcare, and give lower ratings on government responsiveness and trustworthiness. People with disabilities continue to be sidelined in important ways. Fully closing the disability gap would have led to 3.0 million more voters in 2008 and 3.2 million more voters in 2010, potentially affecting many races and subsequent public policies. Adapted from the source document.

ObjectiveWe examine whether people with disabilities are part of the political mainstream, or remain outsiders in important respects, by studying political participation and the underexplored topic of how disability relates to attitudes toward politics.MethodWe analyze new disability measures on the 2008 and 2010 Current Population Surveys voting supplements, and two other nationally representative surveys for 2006 and 2007.ResultsCitizens with disabilities remain less likely than nondisabled citizens to vote. While there are few differences in political preferences and party affiliations, people with disabilities tend to favor a greater government role in employment and healthcare, and give lower ratings on government responsiveness and trustworthiness.ConclusionPeople with disabilities continue to be sidelined in important ways. Fully closing the disability gap would have led to 3.0 million more voters in 2008 and 3.2 million more voters in 2010, potentially affecting many races and subsequent public policies.

Analyzes voter turnout in the 1992 presidential elections among people with disabilities, based on data from the Current Population Survey (N = 93,992 citizens) & a survey of people with spinal cord injuries ([SCI] N = 312). Voting rates & determinants are compared between the general population & people with SCI, & voter turnout is linked to disability characteristics. Results show that voter turnout among people with SCI was 10 % points lower than among otherwise similar people in the general population. Employed people with SCI were just as likely as other employed people to vote, while turnout was strongly depressed among the 66% of people with SCI who were not employed. Within the SCI sample, turnout was higher among people who are able to drive & who attend religious services, & was not affected by severity of injury. The findings highlight the importance of employment & general mobility for voter turnout. Future turnout levels will probably be affected by the success of the Americans with Disabilities Act & other policies in increasing employment of the 20% of Americans with disabilities. 3 Tables, 23 References. Adapted from the source document.

In the U.S. private sector, women are less likely than men to be union members. This study analyses a unique na‐tional survey (conducted in 1984) to determine if women are less interested than men in unionising or if, instead, they are equally interested but face higher barriers to unionisation. The results support the latter interpretation. In particular, non‐union women in private sector white‐col‐lar jobs (representing over half of the female non‐union, work force) expressed more interest than comparable men in joining unions. This finding appears to reflect more optimism among the women in this group than among the men about what unions can accomplish; it is not explained by gender differences in attitudes toward jobs or em‐ployers. The authors discount theories that family respon‐sibilities, or concerns of female workers that set them apart from men, present special barriers to unionisation.

ObjectivePolling place inaccessibility may contribute to the disability gap in voter turnout, both directly by making voting more difficult for people with disabilities, and indirectly by sending the message that people with disabilities are not expected to participate in the political sphere. We explore the role of polling place inaccessibility by examining voter turnout and reports of voting difficulties among people with and without disabilities in the 2012 elections.MethodWe use the Census Bureau's Voting and Registration Supplement (VRS) and a newly constructed national household survey following the 2012 elections.ResultsConsistent with past findings, the disability turnout gap is reduced but not eliminated when controlling for standard predictors of voter turnout. Nearly, one‐third (30 percent) of voters with disabilities reported difficulty in voting at a polling place in 2012, compared to only 8 percent of voters without disabilities. We find that difficulties in voting predict lower perceptions of the influence people with disabilities have in the political process. This in turn is a significant predictor of voter turnout among people with disabilities, supporting the idea that voting difficulties depress turnout. Majorities of people both with and without disabilities said they would prefer voting in person in a polling place in the next election.ConclusionThe results point to the potential role of polling place accessibility in voter turnout, and the gains from wider adoption of best practices to reduce barriers and make the voting process more fully accessible.

Political efficacy is a widely studied phenomenon and an important predictor of political participation, but little is known about the political efficacy of the millions of people with disabilities in the United States. This paper reports the results of a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,240 people—stratified to include 700 people with disabilities—following the November 1998 elections. Several measures of efficacy that help predict political activity were found to be significantly lower among people with disabilities than among otherwise similar people without disabilities. Although lower levels of internal efficacy and civic skills could largely be explained by educational and employment gaps, lower levels of other variables (external efficacy, perceived influence of people with disabilities, and perceived treatment of people with disabilities) remained after applying a wide range of controls, indicating that people with disabilities are less likely to see the political system as responsive to them. This perception is concentrated among non–employed people with disabilities. The lower efficacy levels linked to "disability gaps" in employment, income, education, and group attendance appear to account for as much as half of the disability political participation gap; hence, policies intended to increase employment and educational opportunities for people with disabilities have potentially important political effects.