Barriers to finding and maintaining open employment for people with intellectual disability in Australia

Abstract

Everyone has the right to employment. Work is important for health, well‐being, and social, economic, and financial inclusion. However, it is often difficult for people with intellectual disability to find and maintain work, especially in the open labour market. Policy challenges remain about who can access open employment (also sometimes called competitive or supported employment) and how often people with intellectual disability do so. Greater understanding about the barriers that people with intellectual disability encounter when they try to find and keep work in open employment is needed.Drawing on research with 51 people with intellectual disability in Australia, this paper examines the systemic barriers they report to finding and maintaining work in open employment. The findings highlight that the barriers they experience stem from narrow, dismissive, and discouraging attitudes to their work in open employment and from a spectrum of experiences of stigma and discrimination in open workplaces. The paper thus provides new knowledge about reasons that people with intellectual disability may either reject or not continue in open employment and take up less inclusive work options. The paper discusses the implications of the findings, including the need for policy development for attitudinal change, designing more varied roles for employees with intellectual disability, ensuring access to industrial relations protections, and increasing and better regulating and funding requirements on support to people with intellectual disability who are seeking work in open employment.

Employment Sustainability for People with Intellectual Disability: A Systematic Review

“…The greatest difficulty in comparing studies is, however, the great variation in diagnoses within the studied material. [26] Working for pay independently and/or with support in the community greater than 10 h/week in total at two measurements [18 months apart] The mother of the person with ID reports that they are employed at both measurements Heron et al [27] -[Employers] rated their challenges with the retention (e.g., lack of advancement potential, the actual cost of accommodating a disability, attitudes of customers) of employees with IDD (1 = not a challenge, 2 = somewhat a challenge, 3 = major challenge) Holwerda et al [28] Working for at least six consecutive months Twelve quarterly measurements during the follow-up period, which per individual ranged from 1 year and 3 months to 2 years and 9 months Lindstrom et al [29] -Participants' accounts from three interviews over 4 years and triangulation with other types of data Meltzer et al [30] -Participants' accounts from one interview Park and Park [31] Having a job for at least one month Self-reported information. Job retention was coded as the month of the survey year minus the year and month of employment Petner-Arrey et al [32] -Participants' accounts from one interview (unclear which questions were asked about sustainability) Teindl et al [33] -Participants' accounts from one interview about their experience of seeking, finding, and maintaining meaningful employment Vlachou et al [34] -Participants' accounts from one interview about facilitators and barriers for maintaining employment Table 4 Facilitators and barriers across the three dimensions mentioned by Kellard et al [22] "Personal characteristics" [22] "Circumstances" [22] "Labour market opportunities" [22] or other societal factors…”

“…Ten articles [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] met the inclusion criteria. Half of them [25][26][27][28]31] had quantitative designs, and the other half [29,30,[32][33][34] had qualitative designs. They were from seven different countries and they were published between 2013 and 2020.…”

“…All five qualitative articles [29,30,[32][33][34] were based on semi-structured interviews (see Table 2). Employment sustainability was thus measured in terms of accounts given by the participants during the interviews.…”

Discriminación e inclusión laboral en grandes empresas de Arica (Chile)

“…Más del 50%, si se toma en cuenta la parte II de la tabla 3, de las empresas de la población de estudio, cuentan con normativa interna, lo que les permite contar con herramientas normativas frente a las actitudes desdeñosas y desalentadoras de los empleadores. De hecho, en Meltzer et al (2020), en una investigación que examina las barreras sistémicas que enfrentan las PeSD para encontrar y mantener un trabajo en empleos abiertos, algunas personas notaron actitudes despectivas de los empleadores debido a su discapacidad, lo que afectó su búsqueda de trabajo en empleos abiertos, ya que sentían que muchos empleadores asumían que no podrían cumplir efectivamente un rol, sin hablar con ellos o sin escuchar a sus empleados su propia perspectiva sobre su capacidad para emprender el trabajo.…”

The formation of ecosystems of employment for persons with disabilities

“…Group of authors Meltzer, A., Robinson, S., Fisher, K., Jonathon Breen., Farinaz Havaei and Cristina Pitassi believe that these barriers stem from a narrow, dismissive and discouraging attitude towards the work of disabled employers and discrimination in the workplace [5,6]. The attitude of employers makes a significant contribution to the successful employment of disabled people.…”