Bengtsson Steen, Datta Gupta Nabanita
SFI-The Danish National Centre for Social Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
PLoS One. 2017 Mar 29;12(3):e0173659. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0173659. eCollection 2017.
The literature on disability has suggested that an educated individual with a disability is more likely to better cope with her/his disability than those without education. However, few published studies explore whether the relationship between education and ability to cope with a disability is anything more than an association. Using data on disability and accommodation from a large Danish survey from 2012-13 and exploiting a major Danish schooling reform as a natural experiment, we identified a potential causal effect of education on both economic (holding a job) as well as social (cultural activities, visiting clubs/associations, etc.) dimensions of coping among individuals with a disability, controlling for background factors, functioning, and disability characteristics. We found that endogeneity bias was only present in the case of economic participation and more educated individuals with a disability indeed had higher levels of both economic and social coping. To some extent, having more knowledge of public support systems and higher motivation explained the better coping among the group of individuals with disabilities who were educated. Our results indicated, however, that a large part of the effect of education on the ability to cope with a disability among individuals with disabilities was suggestive of a causal relationship.
关于残疾问题的文献表明，与未受过教育的残疾人相比，受过教育的残疾人更有可能更好地应对自身残疾状况。然而，很少有已发表的研究探讨教育与应对残疾能力之间的关系是否不仅仅是一种关联。利用2012 - 13年丹麦一项大型调查中关于残疾和便利设施的数据，并将丹麦的一项重大学校教育改革作为自然实验，我们确定了教育对残疾个体在经济（拥有工作）以及社会（文化活动、参加俱乐部/协会等）应对方面的潜在因果效应，同时控制了背景因素、功能状况和残疾特征。我们发现，内生性偏差仅在经济参与方面存在，而且受教育程度更高的残疾人在经济和社会应对方面确实具有更高水平。在一定程度上，对公共支持系统有更多了解以及更高的积极性解释了受过教育的残疾人群体应对能力更强的原因。然而，我们的结果表明，教育对残疾人应对残疾能力的影响很大一部分表明存在因果关系。
