DAVID KAMIN, New York University - School of Law
Email: kamin@nyu.edu

This analysis explores how health status affects the marginal utility of income. To analyze this question, I employ a new survey of subjective well-being, the Princeton Affect and Time Survey (PATS), which asks people to report the strength of a number of different emotions as they went about their activities of the previous day. Based on findings from PATS, I conclude that the marginal utility of income is significantly higher for those who report being not satisfied with their health in terms of average levels of pain, sadness, and stress as experienced during the waking day and, also, when measured in terms of a more comprehensive misery index. Having a reported disability that limits the kind or amount of work in which a person can engage has a much weaker relationship with the marginal utility of income, although there is some evidence that this too increases the marginal utility of income especially in terms of pain reduction. Still, any such positive relationship between disability and the marginal utility of income, as measured in this study, appears limited to those who report both having a disability and being not satisfied with their health. Finally, this study concludes that this positive relationship between poor health status and a higher marginal utility of income is largely limited to those near the bottom of the income spectrum.

TULIA ACKSON, affiliation not provided to SSRN

This paper explores the effective non-availability of disability/invalidity benefits to formal sector employees with HIV/AIDS in the United Republic of Tanzania. The legal difficulty of establishing a direct connection between HIV/AIDS and employment injury and occupational diseases present a challenge to social security institutions and schemes which are simultaneously trying to come to grips with the mounting problems of the shrinkage of the formal sector and low coverage. Remedial policy responses are proposed. These identify the statutory and legal adjustments needed both to ensure convergence of eligibility criteria for invalidity benefit claims among the concerned institutions, and to ensure that qualifying conditions are both consistent and in line with contemporary approaches to disbility. The suggested adjustments would simplify and clarify eligibility criteria in cases of invalidity involving existing scheme members, potentially also allowing for a future expansion of benefit coverage better to reflect labour market realities.

CARRIE GRIFFIN BASAS, University of Tulsa College of Law
Email: carrie-basas@utulsa.edu

This article fuses the fields of law, feminist theory, and cultural studies to examine the status of women attorneys with disabilities. It is the first study of its kind in the United States. The author conducted an empirical, qualitative, and ethnographic study of women attorneys with disabilities in the United States. Thirty-eight attorneys participated and their narratives form the basis for critical analysis of disability animus and discrimination in the legal profession. The results show an alarming trend toward disabled women attorneys self-accommodating in the workplace, rather than enforcing their employment rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Relying on the scholarship of covering, passing, and mitigation conducted in the law and social sciences, the author advances theories about ableism in the legal profession, particularly with regard to disabled women. These theories inform and complement strategies for increasing overall diversity in the legal profession. She suggests litigation and professional culture-based measures for improving the status of disabled women attorneys and all attorneys stigmatized by perceived differences.