ABSTRACT
Disability policies serve several contradictory goals. Contradictory goals represent social policy dilemmas. They cannot be 'solved'. Instead, one must search for the best possible balance between such goals, bearing in mind that the balance will often have to be adjusted across time. The most important contradictory goals in disability policies can be presented as follows:
One [goal] is to ensure that disabled citizens are not excluded; that they are encouraged and empowered to participate as fully as possible in economic and social life, and in particular to engage in gainful employment, and that they are not ousted from the labor market too easy or too early. The other goal is to ensure that those who are or who become disabled have income security; that they are not denied the means to live decently because of disabilities that (may) restrict their earning potential. How to reconcile these twin goals has yet to be resolved. (OECD 2003, 3).
