Partially Disabled Employees: Dealing with a Double Role in the Netherlands

Abstract

In 2006 new social policy legislation was introduced in the Netherlands, under which employees with chronic health problems may be allocated a ‘double identity’, being assessed simultaneously as partly sick and partly able to work. Employees in this situation receive a proportion of disability benefit according to their assessed loss of earning capacity and are required to engage in paid work in order to earn an income over and above this. Our central research question is: Which factors elicit the labour market participation of these partially disabled employees? This article reports results from a survey of 772 partially disabled employees. We analyse our data using structural equation modelling and find that labour market participation of partially disabled employees is particularly strongly associated with perceptions of their capability to work and of their chances of returning to work. The results are considered in relation to Parsons' (1951) classical theory of the sick role and are elaborated on the basis of Sen's (1993, 1999) conceptualisation of capability.