Limits to vocational inclusion?: Disability and the social democratic conception of labour

The article discusses the difficulties faced by disabled people to enter the ordinary labour market. Despite increasing political emphasis on employment integration, and a gradual integration on most other areas of society, statistics indicate stagnation and even decline in labor market participation among disabled people in the majority of EOCD countries. Several studies also report that many disabled people experience a disinterest from employment authorities in helping them find employment.

Drawing on a biographical study from Norway based on life-history interviews with 66 disabled people, the article discusses possible explanations to the meagre results of disability employment policies. The article suggests a number of feasible explanations: Parts of the explanation must be sought in the early institutionalization of waged labor. Defining the ‘ability to work’ was the primary criterion used to define who is disabled and, subsequently, entitled to public support. The article suggest that the increasing emphasis on workfare policies makes labor authorities inclined to focus more on the ‘suspicious cases’, i.e. those suspected unwilling to work, than on those who per definition is excerpted from the duty of work.