Disability and Employment

Excluding persons with disabilities from work is an opportunity cost borne by the individual as well as the society at large. From an economic perspective, lower employment results in poverty, lower economic performance, reduced consumption rates and tax revenues. From a social perspective, excluding the disabled from income-generating activities engenders feelings of worthlessness and disempowerment, and increases the pressure on disability insurance schemes and informal support networks.  Nevertheless, persons with disabilities face many hurdles in accessing vocational training and employment opportunities. Specifically, business owners believe that employing persons with disabilities incurs extra costs in order to make the workplace disability-friendly. Another important barrier to getting jobs relates to the eligibility criteria of disability benefits programmes, which can discourage persons with disabilities from seeking work if it deprives them from potential social assistance. Other known reasons for the low employment rates among persons with disabilities include the following: low level of education and training; existing unemployment in the population at large; concern about insurance costs; lack of information on job opportunities; and lack of supporting devices and technologies at the workplace. 

Data from the American Community Survey of 2008 showed that the employment rate of working-age people with disabilities in the United States of America was 39.5 per cent, compared to 79.9 per cent of those without disabilities.[1] Similarly, almost 70 per cent of persons with disabilities in Latin America are reported to be unemployed and those who are in the workforce often receive little or no compensation for their work.[2]  In the ESCWA region, research carried out in Yemen by the World Bank found that only 12 per cent of persons with disabilities in the working age were economically active.[3]

Women with disabilities face even more difficulties in accessing the job market, compared to their male counterparts and to non-disabled women. A study on gender and disability reported that only 2 per cent of women with disabilities in Kuwait were economically active, compared to 10 per cent for other women and 20 per cent for men with disabilities.[4] Table 2 shows the employment situation of persons with disabilities in the limited number of ESCWA members where relevant data was available.

Sources: Compiled by ESCWA based on the following: Central Statistics Organization in Bahrain, “Population, Housing, Building and Establishment Census (2001); Department of Statistics in Jordan, “Population and Housing Census 2004”; Central Bureau of Statistics in Palestine, “Persons with Disabilities in Palestinian Territories” (June 2000); Planning Council in Qatar, “Population and Housing Census 2004; and Central Bureau of Statistics in the Syrian Arab Republic, “Population and Housing Census 2004”.