Five Decades of Disability Benefit Policies in Five OECD Countries

This chapter summarizes and discusses developments and policy changes in the public disability benefit programs of five OECD countries—the Netherlands, Sweden, Great Britain, Germany and Australia---over the last four decades. All five countries experienced substantial increases in their disability recipiency rates (beneficiaries as a share of the working age population) at some point after 1970, followed by plateauing, and then eventually declines. This pattern reflects a commonality in the evolution of their disability benefit policies: Periods of expanding generosity were followed by rising recipiency rates. These rising rates triggered policy reforms that tightened generosity again, which reduced inflows onto the program and eventually also recipiency rates.

McVicar, Duncan, Roger Wilkens and Nicolas R. Ziebarth (2022), Five Decades of Disability Benefit Policies in Five OECD Countries , in: Doug J. Besharov, Douglas M. Call (Eds.), 1, Oxford University Press (OUP) 151-182