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May 2, 2000
Work opportunities limited for women with disabilities
OTTAWA - Women with disabilities are a great source of untapped potential as employees, according to a report being released today by the Canadian Council on Social Development (CCSD). However, a range of barriers prevent women with disabilities from participating to their full potential in the labour market.
In Bringing Down the Barriers: The Labour Market and Women with Disabilities in Ontario, CCSD senior research associate Gail Fawcett combines the latest statistical data about the economic situation of women with disabilities with findings from focus groups in Ontario about these women's experiences in the job market.
"As well as their disability, women must accommodate their family roles when they enter the job market, which presents some formidable challenges for them. For example, women with disabilities have difficulty finding child care that is both affordable and accessible, and they often lack sufficient help with household tasks," says Fawcett.
In the focus groups, women with disabilities also identified inflexible income support program rules as a barrier for them to entering the labour market.
Nearly 7 in 10 women with disabilities who were in the labour force at some point during 1993 and 1994 either dropped out or were involuntarily unemployed for a while during that two-year period. Among their non-disabled counterparts, only 2 in 10 experienced this kind of work instability.
The latest data indicate that more than 500,000 adult women in Ontario had a disability in 1995. Nearly 60% of these women were of working age. Women with disabilities have the highest rates of stress of any group, according to the National Population Health Survey.
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Canadian Council on Social Development,
190 O'Connor Street, Suite 100,
Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 2R3
Tel: (613) 236-8977, Fax: (613) 236-2750, Web: www.ccsd.ca, Email: council@ccsd.ca
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