In order to promote the employment of persons with disabilities, two dominant legal approaches—anti-discrimination legislation based on the social model of disability and an employment quota scheme based on the medical model—are usually employed on a nation-state basis in disability policies. This article systematically examines the reasons why both the anti-discrimination and employment quota scheme legal frameworks have limited effectiveness in promoting employment of persons with disabilities in China. We found that the lack of a definition of disability, the lack of a definition of discrimination, and the absence of effective enforcement mechanisms are the reasons for poor outcomes of the anti-discrimination legal framework. For the employment quota scheme, conflicts between the mainstream labor market legal framework and the quota scheme legal framework have prompted employers to pay penalties rather than hire persons with disabilities. China should address these issues in the current legal system in the short term. Meanwhile, the CRPD should be more strongly emphasized in China. This article argues for the human rights model espoused by the CRPD, instead of the medical model, to develop a coherent and sustainable disability legal framework for promoting participation of persons with disabilities, rather than focusing on viewing them as recipients of care.

Reconciling the potentially conflicting goals between income benefits and employment has become one of the key issues in international disability policy for working-age persons with disabilities. Inspired by the often-criticized experience of disability income benefits having an exclusory effect on employment of persons with disabilities in welfare states by two mechanisms—the disincentive effect of the generous benefits based on the work incapacity of persons with disabilities and the impairment-based work disability assessment for attaining these benefits—this paper aims to examine how disability income benefits affect employment for persons with disabilities in China. Using the life-story interviews method, this paper found that the disability income benefits for persons with disabilities based on their work incapability create “quasi-employment” perceptions among recipients with disabilities. The impairment-based work disability assessment for attaining these benefits excludes persons with disabilities from formal employment but does open them to more informal employment. Implications for policy are discussed.