Impact of Social Devaluation on People With Disability

Social devaluation is a term coined by sociologist Erving Goffman to describe the process of having one’s social identity reduced in value or significance. This can be due to many factors, including physical/intellectual disability, ageism, racism, and sexism. One group that has been affected by this phenomenon is people with disabilities.

The impact of social devaluation on people with disabilities is intense and personal – often barring them from exploring and actualizing their full potential.

This blog is dedicated to understanding this social issue in more detail and curbing it effectively for a more inclusive human society.
Let us get going!

What Does Social Devaluation Mean Anyway?

Social Devaluation or ‘Stigma’ means reducing an individual’s ‘social value’ based on a specific attribute, whereby that attribute is deeply discredited by society. To be more precise, social devaluation is the root cause of prevalent social stigmas, which marginalizes individuals who share a discreditable attribute as per society’s biased beliefs.

Examples of a few social stigmas that stem from social devaluation are;

• Mental Illnesses, one of the most stigmatized conditions in Australia. However, Australia’s Disability Discrimination Act 1992 prohibits any discrimination or devaluation against those who have mental or intellectual disabilities and prevents employers from discriminating against such individuals
• Physical Disabilities, conditions like obesity, and learning disabilities.
• Sexual Orientation – homophobia/transphobia being one example.

Cost of Social Devaluation for Individuals with Disabilities

Devaluation of any group of individuals who share a common attribute (which is stigmatized by the mainstream society) comes with its fair share of costs. To have a better understanding of these costs, take a look at the below pointers;

Talent Costs

• Communication barriers: Communication barriers are experienced by individuals with disabilities that affect hearing, speaking, reading, writing, and understanding.
• Institutional barriers: These include laws, policies, practices, or strategies that either discriminate against people with disabilities or have been designed without keeping them in mind. For example; Public transport being inaccessible to people with disabilities. This poses a challenge in their everyday lives and reduces their ability to participate fully in community life.

We should also educate ourselves on being compassionate towards those who have physical or mental disabilities rather than viewing them through an outsider’s lens. That shall happen when fostering compassion and humility for one another as a society. There is much work to do if we want to value people with disabilities socially fully. Are you ready? Share and spread the word!

Individuals with physical disabilities and sound intelligence often have to face multiple barriers. These barriers include mainstream society’s default attitude, non-inclusive policies, environmental barriers (a building with no wheelchair ramp, for example), and institutional barriers (absence of disabled-employee policies that enable them to perform their work correctly and efficiently).
With these barriers, it is ultimately society that bears a higher cost for a non-inclusive attitude towards disabled individuals.

Cost of Mental Well-Being

As individuals with disabilities face everyday barriers and negative societal attitudes, stress, anxiety, and depression add to their problem.

The feeling of non-inclusiveness and isolation may increase mental well-being costs over their existing disability costs. In that sense, society bears the cost of mental well-being for those with disabilities – a classic example of the negative ripple effect.

Opportunity Costs

Some studies have also found a negative correlation between disabled children/adults’ educational levels and their employment status (i.e., they perform less satisfactorily) in jobs or careers than non-disabled people do.

This further increases the economic burden on individuals and society in terms of higher education costs from universities or colleges as opposed to vocational schools that are accessible. In addition, many institutions offer no support services such as ramps for wheelchair accessibility or closed captioning (non-inclusive institutional barrier).

In effect, opportunity costs add up to burden individuals with disabilities, and they are kept from adding value to their own lives and society.

How Can We Curb Social Devaluation for People With Disability?

As a society, we can curb social devaluation and the resulting barriers by actively valuing people with disabilities. An example of this can be being inclusive of all types of diversity in our schools so that these individuals are not marginalized from mainstream society and advocate for more support systems like ramps or closed captioning.

To effectively curb this social issue, the following barriers must be removed;

• Attitudinal barriers: Created by people who see only disability when associating with people with disabilities in some way. These attitudinal barriers can be witnessed through pre-conceived notions, bullying, discrimination, and fear.
• Environmental barriers: There can be environments built without keeping in mind the needs of people with disabilities – rendering them inaccessible. We need environment, workplace, and public-place design for accessibility.