The Last Ventilator: Disability, Discrimination and Resource Distribution

• In Event: Pitied but Ignored? Discrimination Toward Disabled People in Politics and Policy

Abstract

We investigate how stereotypes towards social groups contribute to American public opinion on who is deserving of scarce resources during the COVID-19 crisis, focusing on people with disabilities (PWD). Research reveals that the mass public’s willingness to confer government resources depends on the social construction of the population of recipients (e.g., Schneider & Ingram, 1993; van Oorschot, 2000). However, the literature has insufficiently studied social constructions of people with disabilities, with existing studies indicating both positive (e.g., Fiske et al., 2002; Schneider & Ingram, 1993) and negative social constructions (e.g., Nario-Redmond, 2020). We extend this literature by studying: 1) how multiple group identities intersect to shape perceptions of deservingness (e.g., disability, race, gender), 2) how individual behavior may moderate the relationship between intersectional group identities and perceptions of deservingness, and 3) the individual characteristics that may contribute to these effects, such as anxiety about death due to COVID-19. In January 2021, we will collect data using a choice-based conjoint experimental method, which allows us to manipulate several different group characteristics and calculate the average marginal component effects of each identity on the likelihood that respondents think the patient is deserving of “the last ventilator” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research will not only uncover how the public is judging people with disabilities during this pandemic, but it will also contribute to the recent growing literature on deservingness by utilizing an intersectionality lens and investigating the role of individual behavior in deservingness perceptions

Authors

• Elizabeth Bell

• Ari Neeman

• Monica C. Schneider, Miami University

• Dara Z. Strolovitch, Yale University