Domain 1: Economic Participation and Employment

“I’ve heard it said that people with disabilities are not born to live; they’re born to advocate. I think that’s absolutely unfortunate, but true because we spend so much of our daily energy educating and explaining our needs. People who have power in the workplace need to be cognizant of asking people with disabilities how they can be accommodated. It is also a necessity for a person with disabilities, when they encounter barriers, to speak up. I believe that working together, we’re able to make the world better.”

– Wissam Constantin, President, Canadian Association of the Deaf^[1]

People living with disability are particularly stigmatized in market-based societies.  As Sarah Rose argues in her book No Right to be Idle: The Invention of Disability, 1840s to 1930s, the shifting economic and social structure following the Second Industrial Revolution “effectively barred workers with disabilities from mainstream workplaces and simultaneously cast disabled people as morally questionable dependents in need of permanent rehabilitation to achieve ‘self-care’ and ‘self-support’.”^[2]  There is also a persistent, misguided perception that locating, hiring, onboarding, accommodating and training persons with disabilities is too difficult—not worth the effort and resources of employers.^[3]

Disability is unfortunately strongly associated with economic disadvantage. As researcher Michael J. Prince summarizes, “employment issues of central concern to the Canadian disability movement are threefold: first, the disabling attitudes, built environments, public policies, and professional practices; second, the high proportion of people with disabilities receiving exclusionary day programs or activity services that do not offer employment supports and authentic employment placement options; third, the long-term unemployment and the chronic and pervasive poverty experienced by most adults with disabilities.”^[4] Disability movement  leaders worry that without more sustained and robust public policy actions, the Canadian labour force could well become more exclusionary, not less, driven by technological developments and such practices as outsourcing work.”^[5]

Even though people with disabilities are among the most economically marginalized groups, they ironically represent huge untapped markets for not just consumption, but also entrepreneurship and design innovation. The Toronto-based data analytics firm Return on Disability (ROD) has run some interesting numbers on the market potential of disability access and inclusion. Placing a fine point on the market opportunity, ROD estimates the worldwide spending power of people with disabilities and their friends and family to be roughly $13 trillion in annual disposable income.^[6]

To further explore Domain 1: Economic Participation and Employment, click to explore the sub-domains below:

Access to Dignity: Poverty and Disability

Access to Employment

Accommodation and Equity in the Workplace

Systems Snapshot: Accessing Accommodations in the Workplace

Corporate Inclusion and the Road to Scaled Innovation

Accessing Entrepreneurship and Business Development

Enterprises Owned or Operated by the Disability Community

Empathy-Building Enterprises