Global situation

As people with disabilities have on average a lower level of formal education, they also have more difficulties in finding employment. Even after participating in further education, they still face discrimination at the hands of employers and colleagues. Consequently the levels of unemployment and underemployment of people with disabilities are much higher compared to the rest of the population. And even if people with disabilities have a job, on average they earn less than people without disabilities. This lack of employment naturally leads to income poverty. Data on unemployment rates of people with disabilities are rare or unreliable, as such data depend on the definition of disability and unemployment (see Hernández-Licona, pp. 3-6) For example, in a number of Latin American countries somebody is only defined as disabled if he/she is unemployed. The ILO suggests that unemployment rates among people with disabilities are two to three times higher than among people without disabilities. Consequently, high numbers of individuals with disabilities depend on engagement in the informal sector, on self-employment or even on begging to earn their living.

Possible solutions

For a long time special vocational workshops have been the main solution used in the employment sector, although such workshops are again a western approach imported to developing countries, with two key drawbacks in that they are restricted in number and do not enhance social inclusion. Promoting a different approach, the ILO devised Standards on Management of Disability at the Workplace, providing orientation in this area. Solutions generally propose improvements to the legal framework, which should eliminate exclusion and facilitate employment, for example by giving subsidies to employers who recruit people with disabilities. This is a field where DPOs and (I)NGOs can assist in lobbying and advocacy work as well as in providing advice on how workplaces should be designed. Regarding both the employment and the education sectors, policies should avoid creating parallel structures, but instead promote a single structure which facilitates access to the same opportunities for all.

In fact, in most developing countries a great number of people live or work in the informal sector and on subsistence agriculture; only a minority of people are formally employed, yet employment policies only address this minority. Therefore strategies specifically need to consider people with disabilities in a rural context. To support people with disabilities in becoming self-employed, they should be integrated into existing funding mechanisms such as micro credits and loan schemes. These systems therefore need be made accessible.