Fiatal mozgássérültek rehabilitációjának kihívásai és a „rokkantnyugdíj-érdekeltség” elleni küzdelem a késő-államszocialista Magyarországon, 1970–1989

Absztrakt

In late Kádár-era Hungary, public debates in the media increasingly touched upon issues in social and health policy, including the social status of the elderly and people with disabilities. By the 1970s and 1980s, those who had become permanently disabled due to the polio epidemic of the 1950s had reached adulthood. Both the affected individuals and the state apparatus struggled to support the autonomy of the so-called “teenage pensioners,” young people who, lacking meaningful employment opportunities, were forced into disability retirement before ever starting a career. Similar to other Eastern Bloc countries, the state’s interest was to adapt in practice the principle of “medical productivity,” as described in academic literature. In Teodor Mladenov’s definition, this concept refers to turning people into an economic resource or productive forces through rehabilitation, a “correction” of disability as interpreted within the ideological framework of state socialism. But can this concept be universally applied across all Eastern Bloc states, time periods, types of disability, and age groups? This paper explores the contradictions between “medical productivity” and employer discrimination against young people with physical disabilities in late state-socialist Hungary by analyzing the discourses of both the state propaganda and the disability advocacy movement emerging at the time. It also highlights the broader social and economic transformations in the final years of the regime, which significantly influenced public perceptions of rehabilitation, disability pensions, and increasingly individualized paths to well-being.