Question & problem
Despite initiatives, strategies and legislation attempting to promote and enforce equal opportunities for persons with disabilities, including in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), evidence globally suggests that the labour market is far from inclusive. Youth with disabilities are often unemployed, underemployed or earn less than non-disabled colleagues. They are often the last to be hired, the first to be retrenched or fired, or hired for unskilled jobs. However, there is limited research and evidence of initiatives and programmes that support persons with disabilities into employment. This evidence brief aims to identify and provide evidence on the strategies and models that are effective in assisting young people with disabilities to enter into employment, as well as to highlight barriers and gaps in knowledge to inform future practices.
Quote
Recommendations
Key recommendation
Action
Ensure that strategies and initiatives always include multiple stakeholders (family, employers, service providers, recruitment agencies, Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) as well as effective collaboration and communication channels. E.g. universities or schools need to collaborate with employers to ensure placement and development opportunities exist when supporting a student for employment. All stakeholder collaboration should be led by a shared priority and goal.
Key recommendation
Action
Provide students with career services such as skills training, career counselling, provision of a mentor and support from job placement supervisors and career counselling. Educational institutions should also target these support services to meet the requirements and skills expected by employers. Guidance should be provided to educational institution staff on how they can support students in their transition to employment.
Key recommendation
Action
Effective and comprehensive information sharing between employers, relevant stakeholders and youth with disabilities regarding accommodations needed for entering into employment. Understanding the impact of disability on employment outcomes and how best to support these needs by employers is proven to be an effective strategy in employment outcomes for young persons with disabilities. Employers should also be encouraged to provide internship and graduate programs specific to youth with disabilities.
Key recommendation
Action
Make use of specialised recruitment agencies to facilitate employment and accessible recruitment without barriers and reduce stigma. It is also recommended that staff from all support and technical departments receive disability awareness training. It was also found that sharing success stories of persons with disabilities at work is another effective strategy to illustrate the benefits for both persons with disabilities and employers and reduce stigmatisation.
Challenges
Challenge #1: When designing any initiative or strategy to support youth with disabilities to enter into employment, it is unclear which components or characteristics of these strategies are successful and needed.
- There are several studies that describe the characteristics needed for any strategy or intervention to be successful and how to incorporate them, however many studies have numerous overlapping or conflicting findings.
- The majority of studies have found that successful strategies are those that consists of effective communication channels with multiple stakeholders i.e. schools, families, employers and service providers, and ensure employment of youth with disabilities is a shared priority. However, a majority of initiatives do not include these strategies.
Challenge #2: It is well established that persons with disabilities often do not have the same opportunities to employment as their non-disabled peers.
- Studies have shown that there is no direct correlation between education and employment. Even well educated (having completed higher education) youth with disabilities struggle to find or take longer to find employment than non-disabled graduates and peers.
- There is a need for more focused support from educational institutions to facilitate the employment of youth with disabilities.
- Educators do not target initiatives or interventions to youth with disabilities that cater to post-education goals such as job ready skills and requirements by employers.
Challenge #3 There is limited evidence as to what encourages employers to hire youth with disabilities.
- Some studies have identified employers’ perspectives on the best facilitators for the employment of youth with disabilities. However, these studies have varied findings that differ widely between sectors. Much more research on the perspectives and strategies implemented by employers to accommodate youth with disabilities are needed.
- Employers did however identify that there is a need for disability awareness training for staff to reduce stigma around hiring youth with disabilities and create more awareness of the needs required to support them in entering employment.
- Studies show that once an employer has hired a person with a disability, they are more likely to hire again, however it remains a challenge and it is still unclear on how to motivate employers to hire the first young person with a disability.
Challenge #4: Several studies have shown that there is a need to address the attitudinal barriers and stigmatisation that youth with disabilities face at their educational institution, service providers and employers.
- Studies have shown that educational institutions have a lack of knowledge and negative attitudes with regards to the support students may need in their transition into employment. These institutions require better guidance as to how they should support and prepare students for their transition
- Some studies have found that youth with disabilities face barriers due to employers having inaccessible recruitment processes and stigmatisation when disclosing a disability, after disclosure employers often no longer wish to interview or employ someone. Additionally, very few studies address how young people and employers approach disclosure of a disability.
Finding the answers
We conducted a review of reviews, examining systematic, scoping, and other types of review evidence on the topic of strategies that support youth to enter into employment. In total, 7 reviews were used and 1 study. All recommendations are based on 6 reviews of literature from low- and middle-income countries, as well as 1 review of literature from high-income countries. All the recommendations made can be used in high and low-resource settings.
Recommendations & actions
Key recommendation
Action
Ensure that strategies and initiatives always include multiple stakeholders (family, employers, service providers, recruitment agencies, Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) as well as effective collaboration and communication channels. E.g. universities or schools need to collaborate with employers to ensure placement and development opportunities exist when supporting a student for employment. All stakeholder collaboration should be led by a shared priority and goal.
Key recommendation
Action
Provide students with career services such as skills training, career counselling, provision of a mentor and support from job placement supervisors and career counselling. Educational institutions should also target these support services to meet the requirements and skills expected by employers. Guidance should be provided to educational institution staff on how they can support students in their transition to employment.
Key recommendation
Action
Effective and comprehensive information sharing between employers, relevant stakeholders and youth with disabilities regarding accommodations needed for entering into employment. Understanding the impact of disability on employment outcomes and how best to support these needs by employers is proven to be an effective strategy in employment outcomes for young persons with disabilities. Employers should also be encouraged to provide internship and graduate programs specific to youth with disabilities.
Key recommendation
Action
Make use of specialised recruitment agencies to facilitate employment and accessible recruitment without barriers and reduce stigma. It is also recommended that staff from all support and technical departments receive disability awareness training. It was also found that sharing success stories of persons with disabilities at work is another effective strategy to illustrate the benefits for both persons with disabilities and employers and reduce stigmatisation.
Policy priorities
- Better policy implementation and monitoring is required; despite policies and legislation nationally and internationally promoting the employment of youth with disabilities, research indicates that low employment rates are influenced by a lack of policy implementation or ineffective implementation and monitoring.
- Institutions need better organisational policies that will enable academic staff and placement staff to better support young persons with disabilities as well as clear leadership and guidance from these organisations.
- The majority of research has indicated that employment quotas for persons with disabilities with a category of young persons is essential as well as quotas for skills development programmes such as internships.
- In general, more research and transparency is required to design more effective and informed strategies as well as more informed policy decision-making.
Conclusion
This brief emphasises the need for better services and to address attitudinal barriers. This is an important component when considering strategies to increase employment opportunities for youth with disabilities. The brief found that despite giving young persons opportunities and access to education and even higher education, this does not necessarily improve prospects to employment thereafter. A core strategy and need discussed is to provide services at schools and universities in which they provide guidance and preparation for students as well as partnering with employers to increase placement opportunities. Another core issue addressed in this brief is attitudinal barriers by employers. It is consistently recommended that employers get training, and specialised recruitment agencies are used to address this issue.
Gaps & research needs
- Although there is a clear need for more research on this topic and evidence pertaining to successful strategies, there is also a great need for more specific research focussing on different sectors, levels of education and regions.
- There are gaps in research including on the intersecting effects of disability and other demographic factors such as gender, race and socio-economic status. These are important factors to consider when designing and taking on any strategy or initiative.
- Future research should also address disclosures of disabilities among students and graduates, its effects on employment outcomes and how to best approach it.
Acknowledgements
Peer review: This brief was peer reviewed by Sarah Marks, International Centre for Evidence in Disability, LSHTM and Onaiza Qureshi, Knowledge Exchange Officer at Disability Evidence Portal, LSHTM.
Publication details: © London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, March 2023.
Suggested citation: Liändrie Steffens. Evidence Brief: What are the strategies or models that support youth with disabilities to enter into employment? Disability Evidence Portal, 2023.