Introduction

This chapter discusses access to employment for those deemed ‘disabled’. Lessons learnt from the situation of Deaf and disabled people raise questions about how best to achieve an inclusive employment sector, and therefore have general implications for employment policy. The issues for Deaf and disabled people also lead to questions about the nature of ‘work’, empowerment and participation, and about ways of creating greater flexibility and job satisfaction. Work and employment are all part of “having a life”, as one disabled person put it, which is relevant for anyone, disabled or non-disabled.

The starting point for this chapter is that Deaf and disabled people have a right to define themselves and articulate their needs, and over the past 20 years they have increasingly come to define themselves as ‘disabled by barriers in society’. This ‘social model’ of disability shifts the focus for responding to impairment from ‘fixing’ individuals to changing the wider society and the way in which it relates to disabled people, as well as to the Deaf community (Oliver, 1990). With this in mind, the chapter starts by considering the issues of unemployment and underemployment for disabled people, reasons for the ‘employment paradox’ and the insufficiency of recent policy and practice initiatives. While a ‘disabled’ identity seems to dominate labour market experiences, Deaf and disabled individuals have a range of identities on which they draw. In the light of these issues, the central part of the chapter presents findings from the Bristol SEQUAL research, which worked with Deaf and disabled people to identify barriers to employment and potential solutions. We then consider the societal-level policies and practices that may help to overcome structural barriers to the employment of Deaf and disabled people, and finally summarise key messages and recommendations.

The employment paradox for disabled people

At the time of the research the employment rate for disabled people in Britain in 2004 was 51% compared with 81% of the non-disabled population. More than one million unemployed disabled people wanted a paid job (DWP, 2002). The numbers of people claiming Incapacity Benefit have risen since the early 1990s, while numbers of other claimants have fallen, in a generally buoyant labour market. As Stanley (2005) points out, in 2003, 8.7% of the working-age population claimed benefits as a result of sickness or disability.