Women with disabilities' experiences of government employment assistance in Canada

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore women with disabilities' experiences of government employment assistance in Canada.
The article draws on the results of an online survey conducted in 2006. Data were coded and analysed according to key themes.
The results indicate that many of the women with disabilities who responded to the survey regarded the employment assistance they have received as of very limited importance to their abilities to find and keep paid work. Their comments suggest that existing forms of government employment assistance, such as the provision of wage subsidies to employers, may be of limited effectiveness in enabling at least some women with disabilities to find and keep paid work. The women's comments point to the limitations of existing employment assistance strategies including the need to shift program emphases away from individualistic models aimed at 'reforming the worker' and toward systemic barriers to employment.
The article concludes by discussing the implications of survey results for future research and strategies for improving the types of employment assistance available to women with disabilities.

Full text

REHABILITATION IN PRACTICE
Women with disabilities’ experiences of government employment
assistance in Canada
VERA CHOUINARD
School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Accepted May 2009
Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this article is to explore women with disabilities’ experiences of government employment
assistance in Canada.
Method. The article draws on the results of an online survey conducted in 2006. Data were coded and analysed according
to key themes.
Results. The results indicate that many of the women with disabilities who responded to the survey regarded the
employment assistance they have received as of very limited importance to their abilities to find and keep paid work. Their
comments suggest that existing forms of government employment assistance, such as the provision of wage subsidies to
employers, may be of limited effectiveness in enabling at least some women with disabilities to find and keep paid work. The
women’s comments point to the limitations of existing employment assistance strategies including the need to shift program
emphases away from individualistic models aimed at ‘reforming the worker’ and toward systemic barriers to employment.
Conclusions. The article concludes by discussing the implications of survey results for future research and strategies for
improving the types of employment assistance available to women with disabilities.
Keywords: Employment assistance, women with disabilities, Canada
Introduction: At the margins of employment
The purpose of this article is to examine how a
particular group of women with disabilities have
experienced government employment assistance in
the Canadian context. The article has three specific
aims. First, to assess whether or not the employment
assistance they have received has been experienced as
effective in helping them to secure employment.
Second, to examine why particular forms of assis-
tance have been experienced as more or less effective
in helping to secure paid work. And finally, to
consider what these women have to say about ways of
improving employment assistance programs.
Although women and men with disabilities face
many of the same barriers to employment, these
barriers tend to be especially severe in the case of
women. Not surprisingly then, women with disabil-
ities occupy particularly marginalised places within
local labour markets. In her study of women with
disabilities and barriers to employment in Ontario,
Canada, Fawcett observes that women with disabil-
ities are more likely than others to be unemployed, to
live in poverty, if hired to have temporary and part-
time employment and thus to occupy especially
precarious places within the labour force (i.e. to be
‘last hired and first fired’) [1]. The marginalisation of
women with disabilities in relation to paid work is
accentuated on bases of gender as well as disability.
If employed, for example, women with disabilities in
Canada aged 16–64 earn lower hourly wages than
men with disabilities as well as able-bodied women
(who earn lower hourly wages than able-bodied men)
[2,3].
Although there is a growing international literature
documenting the employment experiences of women
and men with disabilities and in particular the
barriers to employment that they continue to
Correspondence: Vera Chouinard, School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. W., Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4K1.
E-mail: chouinar@mcmaster.ca
Disability and Rehabilitation, 2010; 32(2): 148–158
ISSN 0963-8288 print/ISSN 1464-5165 online ª2010 Informa UK Ltd.
DOI: 10.3109/09638280903023389

encounter [4–11], very little is known about their
experiences of government employment assistance
and the extent to which available forms of assistance
have been helping them to find and keep paid work.
Nor do we know very much about the changes
persons with disabilities would like to see in employ-
ment assistance programs [12]. These are significant
gaps in the literature particularly in light of growing
emphasis on promoting the employment of people
with disabilities by neo-liberal governments. The
limited research that has been conducted indicates
that existing forms of government employment
assistance tend to be highly individualised in nature –
focusing on adaptation of individuals to the demands
of the labour market rather than on diminishing
systemic barriers to inclusion, and that the success of
welfare-to-work programs in moving people with
disabilities into paid work has been relatively limited
[13–17].
This article discusses findings from a 2006 survey
of women with disabilities’ experiences of employ-
ment and government employment assistance in
Canada. The survey focussed on the experiences of
women with disabilities because, given their
marginality in the labour market and workplace,
their needs for assistance in securing and retaining
employment are particularly acute. Although, as
indicated later, the results must be interpreted with
caution, the findings suggest not only that women
with disabilities continue to face serious barriers to
employment but also that government employment
assistance is often inadequate and/or inappropriate to
their needs. This is at least in part the result of
assistance programs that fail to address systemic
barriers to inclusion in places of paid work (e.g.
discrimination in hiring, lack of accommodation in
the workplace) and focus instead primarily on the
skills and attitudes of the job seeker. This reflects
neoliberal modes of governance which emphasise
individualised independence from the state, indivi-
dual responsibility for success or failure in the job
market and encourage individual workers to strive to
embody qualities such as ‘flexibility’ in the labour
process.
The discussion below is organised as follows. First,
there is a brief synopsis of some of the types of
employment assistance available to persons with
disabilities in the Canadian context. Next, an over-
view of survey methods, including limitations is
provided. This is followed by a discussion of survey
results focussing in particular on the experiences
women with disabilities have had of government
employment assistance and their suggestions on how
this assistance can be improved. The article con-
cludes with some reflections on possible directions
for future research and for improving the employ-
ment assistance provided to disabled women.
Employment assistance for persons with
disabilities in Canada
Canada has what some have referred to as a
‘patchwork’ of disability programs, services and
supports [16]. Programs and eligibility for services
and supports vary not only between provinces and
territories but within them as well (notably for
instance in a comparative lack of access to services
and supports for disabled people in rural and remote
areas). This variation in disability programs, services
and supports has been accentuated since 1996, when
the federal government withdrew from an active role
in social policy in favour of largely condition-free
block funding for social programs to provincial and
territorial governments under the Canada Health
and Social Transfer. In this ‘disentangled’ system of
governance, provincial and territorial governments
have assumed almost exclusive responsibility for the
design and standards of disability programs, services
and supports – working in tandem with municipa-
lities and a complex network of community organi-
sations to deliver services and supports such as
employment assistance for persons with disabilities
[18,19].
The complexity of disability employment assis-
tance programs, services and supports in Canada
makes it difficult to monitor or survey them in any
comprehensive way. As Jongbloed et al. explain,
these have developed incrementally leading to a
fragmented array of programs which lack coherence
in goals:
There is no coherent set of goals underlying insurance
based or government employment programs. Incremen-
tal development, during the 20th century, of particular
programs to deal with specific demands (e.g. the needs
of workers with injuries) led to an array of fragmented
policies and programs, which deal with people differ-
ently, according to the cause of their disability. Some of
these programs (e.g. the Canada Pension Plan and
Social Assistance) are part of general welfare state
policies and are also fragmented [16].
Although the complexity and fragmentation of
government employment assistance programs for
disabled persons makes a comprehensive review
beyond the scope of the present article, the following
provides at least a partial glimpse of some of the
kinds of services and supports available as well as
the complex array of programs that exist. A 2005–
2006 Annual Ontario Government Report on
employment-related programs for persons with dis-
abilities falling under the Canada-Ontario Labour
Market Agreement for Persons with Disabilities (a
2004 federal-provincial cost-sharing agreement)
noted some 18 different programs delivered under
the auspices of three different provincial ministries
Employment assistance for women with disabilities 149

and emphasised that these were only some of the
employment assistance initiatives in the province
[20]. A 2007 report on disability employment pro-
grams falling under the Canada-British Columbia
Labour Market Agreement for Persons with Dis-
abilities noted that programs were delivered through
six different ministries [21]. Reflecting recent em-
phases on the ‘employability’ of disabled persons
receiving income assistance, programs such as the
Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) include
a variety of forms of employment assistance: ‘job
coaching, on the job training, adaptive software and
mobility devices, interpreter/intervenor services,
transportation assistance, assistive devices and train-
ing to use them, tools and equipment, special
clothing and specialised computer training’ [22].
Other types of assistance that may be available
include help with workplace accommodation, job
placement, job retention, employment preparation
and planning [20]. Other types of programs delivered
through the auspices of the Ministry of Community
and Social Services and falling under the Canada-
Ontario Labour Market Agreement for Persons with
Disabilities include supported employment, addic-
tion services and the foundations program that
focuses on providing opportunities to young adults
with developmental disabilities to enhance personal
development and skills (including job skills) through
partnerships with community organisations. It is
important to recognise that there are a range of other
types of employment assistance (e.g. the Ministry of
Health and Long-term Care in Ontario offers
employment assistance programs for persons with
psychiatric illnesses and alcohol and drug treatment
programs). Moreover, there are other employment
assistance programs not under the Canada-Ontario
agreement, such as Job Connect that offers assistance
with job placement and provides wage subsidies to
employers as an incentive to hire workers with
disabilities. Wage subsidies are also available in other
provinces and territories – for example, the federal
government offers wage subsidies to employers
through its Opportunities Fund and other provincial
programs, for example in Nova Scotia, provide wage
subsidies as well.
Unfortunately, we know very little about how
effective these and other various forms of assistance
are in enabling women and men with disabilities to
find and keep paid work. The figures that are
available for certain provinces on the number of
persons who receive assistance through particular
programs and obtain and/or retain jobs suggest that
current forms of employment assistance may be
limited in their effectiveness. For example, of
the 30,893 persons who received some form of
employment support through the ODSP from 1999
to 2006, only 8143 or 29% were able to obtain
employment and only 1620 or 5% were able to retain
employment [20].
In an effort to begin to explore the experiences of
women with disabilities with government employ-
ment assistance in Canada, a survey was conducted
in 2006 through an online survey service. Although
quantitative results must be interpreted with caution
because the survey sample cannot be considered
representative of women with disabilities in Canada,
the qualitative results, in particular these women
discussions of experiences of particular types of
employment assistance and their thoughts on how
assistance programs might be improved, provide
some useful insights into the strengths and limita-
tions of some current forms of employment assis-
tance and suggest possible strategies for improving
employment assistance services and supports. Before
discussing selected survey results, survey methods
are outlined including a brief synopsis of the
limitations of the survey.
Survey methods
A survey consisting of 24 closed and open-ended
questions was developed and posted on the Internet
through SurveyMonkey.com. Respondents were
recruited by publicising the survey through contacts
with members of the Disabled Women’s Network of
Canada (e.g. the DAWNOntario listserv) and word
of mouth. A total of 80 women with disabilities
responded over a 3 month period. Respondents
came primarily from Ontario and British Columbia
(34 and 26 respondents, respectively) with the
remainder being drawn (in small numbers) from
provinces and territories other than the Yukon,
Newfoundland and Nunavut.
The survey was designed to explore women’s
experiences of employment and government employ-
ment assistance. Respondents were first asked to
provide background information about themselves
such as the type of disability or illness that they had,
the length of time they had had this, the province in
which they lived and the level of schooling they had
completed. They were then asked to comment on
their employment history including current employ-
ment status, whether or not they had held jobs in the
past, what these jobs were, how long they lasted,
whether or not wages provided an adequate income,
whether or not they had experienced barriers to
employment and if so, what the most important of
these had been. It also asked whether employers had
been willing to accommodate disability-related job
needs. The final section of the survey probed
women’s experiences of government employment
assistance: the types of assistance received, how
important they judged this assistance as being with
150 V. Chouinard

respect to finding and keeping paid work, and asked
for suggestions on how government employment
assistance programs could better meet the needs of
women with disabilities. A copy of the survey
questions appears in the Appendix. Survey results
were analysed thematically.
Participant overview
The women who participated in this survey had a
wide range of illnesses and impairments of a physical,
sensory and mental nature (see Table I). The
duration of their illnesses and impairments ranged
from present at birth to a single year. Table II
summarises sample characteristics in terms of prime
type of impairment and mean duration of disability.
The vast majority (69 of 80 or 89%) lived in urban
rather than rural areas. Importantly, they were a
relatively educated group: 41 of 80 or 51% reported
that they had completed high school and another 27
of 80 or 34% indicated that they had completed a
post-secondary degree or some level of graduate
school training. Thus, 85% of the sample had
received high school or a post-secondary school level
education. This compared, in 1998, to 25% of
women with disabilities aged 16–64 in Canada
having completed high school and 36% having com-
pleted a graduate degree. Thus, rates of completion
of high school were significantly higher than we
might anticipate in terms of national rates of
educational attainment among women with disabil-
ities and slightly lower in terms of post-secondary or
graduate level training [2].
Survey limitations
The sample that responded to this survey cannot be
considered representative of disabled women in
Canada for several reasons. First, recruitment
through the DAWN Canada network and word-of-
mouth meant respondents were a self-selected group
drawn from among relatively politically organised
disabled women. Second, respondents were drawn
primarily from Ontario and British Columbia, with
other regions, including Quebec, not well repre-
sented (in the case of Quebec this reflected the fact
that the online survey was only in English). Third, as
noted earlier, levels of educational attainment, in
particular completion of high school, were relatively
high (with the caveat that post-secondary or graduate
level training among this group of women was
slightly lower than one might expect from national
statistics).
The online survey approach, chosen in an effort to
reach as many women as possible at relatively low
cost, also means the sample cannot be considered
representative. Women with disabilities who com-
pleted the survey needed, for example, to have access
to a computer, have a certain level of manual
dexterity or if they lacked dexterity access to
assistance to help them complete the survey.
Moreover, the online survey design was not, at the
time of this survey, compatible with accessibility
software such as screen-readers making it difficult for
women with visual impairment to participate in the
survey.
Finally, it is important to note the limitations of
survey design. In particular, the survey was lengthy
and questions regarding experiences of employment
assistance appeared at the end of the survey. This is
likely to have diminished the number of respondents
answering questions (particularly open-ended ones
requiring more time) about their experiences of
employment assistance. For example, only 30 of the
40 respondents reporting that they had received
some form of government employment assistance
answered the open-ended question regarding their
reasons for rating the importance of the assistance
they received in finding and keeping a job in a
particular way. A further limitation of the survey
instrument was that cognitive testing of the questions
was not done. This is an important step for future
research. These limitations mean that survey results
must be interpreted with caution. Nonetheless,
Table I. Incidence of type of impairment.
Type of impairment
Number and percentage of women
reporting impairment
x/80
Percentage of
survey sample* (%)
Mobility n¼25 31.3
Pain n¼18 22.5
Agility n¼33.8
Hearing n¼8 10.0
Seeing n¼9 11.3
Psychological n¼18 22.5
Memory n¼56.3
*Percentages do not equal 100 as some women had multiple
impairments.
Table II. Characteristics of survey sample.
Prime type of impairment Mean duration of disability (years)
Mobility 45.8
Pain 15.0
Agility 28.0
Hearing 36.7
Visual 32.4
Psychological 23.1
Memory 16.0
Employment assistance for women with disabilities 151

qualitative results regarding some of these women’s
experiences of government employment assistance
are suggestive of difficulties with current forms of
assistance and possible strategies for improving
employment assistance.
Discussion: Experiences of employment and
employment assistance
As indicated earlier, the online survey focused on
how women with disabilities experienced employ-
ment and employment assistance provided through
government agencies. This section discusses the
results of the survey paying particular attention to
what the women had to say about experiences of
employment assistance.
Experiences of employment
The employment status of the participants at the
time of the survey varied: 27 reported being
employed, 17 were unemployed and looking for
work, 14 were unemployed and not looking for work
and 11 were self-employed. When asked if their
current or past jobs generally paid enough to live on
comfortably, 36 of the 69 (or 52.2%) of participants
responding reported that this was seldom or never
the case. The remaining 33 participants (47.8%)
reported that they were always or usually paid
enough to live on comfortably. This suggests that
for a significant proportion access to a living wage
was an important issue.
The women who responded to the survey experi-
enced a wide range of barriers to finding and keeping
employment – pointing to the need for types of
employment assistance geared to helping them
overcome systemic barriers to employment. The
most frequently cited barriers to employment were
negative employer attitudes (e.g. views that women
with disabilities were less productive workers) and
lack of or insufficient accommodation in the work-
place (see Table III).
Experiences of employment assistance
Of 67 respondents who answered the survey ques-
tion about whether or not they had received
government employment assistance, 40 (60%) in-
dicated that they had and 27 (40%) that they had
not. Those who had received assistance reported
various types, the most frequently cited being wage
subsidies and assistance in finding a job. Assistance
with basic skills, such as resume writing and
projecting a positive attitude during interviews, was
the third most frequently cited form of assistance
(see Table IV).
The women’s assessments of the importance of
employment assistance in finding and keeping a job
suggest that, for a significant proportion, employ-
ment assistance was regarded as being of limited
effectiveness. Of the 40 women who had received
some form of employment assistance 16 or 40%
rated it as being of very little importance in their
finding and keeping paid work. Another 8 (20%)
judged it to have been ‘somewhat important’,
7 (18%) to have been ‘very important’ and 9
(22%) rated it as ‘extremely important’. Overall,
60% of the women regarded the employment
assistance they received as of very little importance
Table III. Most important barriers to finding and/or keeping paid
work.
Type of barrier
Number of
respondents
Transportation 6
Discrimination in hiring 7
Employers’ attitudes e.g. views of disabled as
unproductive, costly, focus on inabilities,
unattractive/abnormal
20
Lack of/insufficient accommodation 13
Skills/education 8
Illness or impairment itself 10
Gender (being a woman) 1
Aspects of jobs such as working hours 5
Physical inaccessibility of workplace and/or local
environment
6
Job history (e.g. insufficient experience, gaps in
employment, numerous different jobs)
3
Disability advocacy in workplace 2
Other (e.g. income assistance disincentives, lack
of job opportunities)
11
Table IV. Type of employment assistance received and importance
of assistance to finding and keeping paid work.
Type of assistance
Number
receiving
Of very little
importance to
somewhat
important
Very
important
to extremely
important
Wage subsidies 10 6/10 4/10
Finding a job 10 6/10 4/10
Basic skills 6 3/6 3/6
Youth employment 3 2/3 1/3
Postsecondary
education
2 0/2 2/2
Other (e.g. computer
training, specialised
skills for
manufacturing,
job coach,
assistive devices)
8 6/8 2/8
152 V. Chouinard

or only somewhat important in finding and keeping
paid work.
Although these results must be interpreted with
caution, given the unrepresentative nature of the
sample, it is still useful to explore why employment
assistance was often judged to be relatively unim-
portant in securing and maintaining employment.
The women’s explanations for rating employment
assistance in this way shed light on the limitations of
some forms of employment assistance.
The majority of the women whose employers had
received wage subsidies (6/10 respondents) regarded
these as of very little importance or only somewhat
important to their finding and keeping a job. Their
reasons for this rating focused on employer abuse of
subsidy assistance – terminating an employee once
her subsidy ran out and replacing her with a new
employee who qualified the employer for wage
subsidies once again.
As one woman with mental illness explained, wage
subsidies could become a ‘revolving door’ for workers:
As soon as the time for my monthly wage subsidies ran
out I was training my replacement (also a Job Connect
placement)! This employer lays off previous Job Connect
workers as soon as the subsidy is over ([it is a] revolving
door and always to the advantage of the employer).
Another woman with a congenital heart condition
and diabetes said:
Some employers hire and keep you until the money runs
out, and after the program ends and part of your wages
are not paid anymore they suddenly can’t afford to keep
you.
One woman with a neurological condition indi-
cated that while subsidies had helped her secure
temporary employment, employer abuse of the
program had been a problem:
[It] kept me employed to avoid long gaps of unemploy-
ment in my resume and it was better than . . . being
unemployed . . . . [However it is] too easily abused e.g.
regarding the program I was in, the object was that
On-Site pays the employee’s salary for the first 8
months, then the employer hires on the individual
beyond that. Instead the employer simply gets a new
On-Site candidate every 8 months to avoid ever having
to pay staff out of their own pocket.
Another woman with mental illness explained that
subsidies had enabled her to secure a job with a non-
profit organisation that would not otherwise have
been able to hire her but that she was unable to
remain in the position because funding ran out and
because of stress-related illness.
Another women with multiple physical and psy-
chological conditions who rated wage subsidies as
relatively unimportant noted that the jobs had lasted
less than a month. Those women (4/10) who had
been able to retain their jobs rated wage subsidies as
very or extremely important – stressing that they
encouraged employers to hire them and gave them a
chance to prove they could do the job.
The majority of the women who had received
assistance with finding a job rated this form of
assistance as having been of very little importance
or only somewhat important in finding and keeping a
job (6/10). Some based this rating on the fact that
they had not actually found a job as a result of
government assistance and/or that the quality of
assistance was poor. One woman with visual impair-
ment who rated this form of assistance as being of
very little importance said:
The government assistance [with finding a job] that I
received was of very poor quality and I did not find a job
under their program. I had better success finding jobs on
my own.
Another woman with psychiatric disability pointed
out that although she had found a secretarial job
suited to her qualifications, it had not led to ongoing
employment:
I appreciated the position and it was an excellent fit. The
program did not however lead to continuous employ-
ment. The program was to re-qualify to remain on
employment assistance.
Another woman with multiple chronic physical
illnesses and psychological disabilities commented
that the process of assisting her to find a job was so
slow (taking several months) that she had found a job
by the time staff got back to her.
Those who had been able to find and retain
positions as a result of government assistance in
finding a job tended to rate this form of assistance
more highly. However, this was not always the case.
One woman, who judged assistance with finding a
job to be extremely important, noted:
I’ve been working with Triumph for over a year to try
and find a job – not successful so far.
Respondents were evenly split on whether or not
assistance with basic skills such as resume writing
had been very or extremely important to finding and
keeping paid work (Table IV). Interestingly, those
who rated basic skills training highly emphasised
aspects other than the teaching of basic skills. One
respondent, a 42-year-old woman with visual
impairment, stressed that it was having an instructor
who was a good role model and able to provide
guidance on negotiating disability issues in the
workplace, rather than basic skills training,
Employment assistance for women with disabilities 153

which had been very important in her finding her first
job:
[X] was the coach at that time – he was a great role
model. In particular, he gave young disabled people
language for identifying and articulating barriers in the
work environment. He also provided strategies for
bringing ‘impairment’ into the discussion with potential
employers and making clear the distinction between
impairment and disability.
Another respondent with mobility impairment
who judged assistance with basic skills to have been
very important stressed the importance of contacts
made through the program and moral support while
seeking employment.
Another respondent stressed that the basic skills
training she had received was very important because
it included pre-screening of employers to ensure
sensitivity to disability issues.
Women who judged basic skills training as of
very little importance or only somewhat important
commented on the poor quality of training, and
staff who seemed unable or unwilling to advocate
for them.
Women’s comments on how government employ-
ment programs could be improved indicated other
concerns with basic skill training including a failure
to tailor it to the client’s age, skills and work
experience and tendencies to assume that all women
with disabilities were poorly educated and their skills
suited only to menial occupations.
Two of the three disabled women who had
participated in youth employment programs judged
this form of assistance to have been of very little
importance or only somewhat important to their
finding and keeping paid work. One woman with
visual impairment, who had participated in an
integrated youth employment internship program
through the Department of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade (DFAIT) in 2002, commented
on a tendency not to hire disabled interns once the
program ended and noted that disabled interns
received less attention from staff.
Non-disabled interns were more readily recruited after
their internship than disabled interns and [disabled
interns] received less attention from DFAIT.
Both respondents who reported having had assis-
tance with post-secondary education judged this as
extremely important to their abilities to find and keep
paid work. One commented that the assistance had
given her the confidence to pursue a University
education. A second 50-year-old woman living with
rheumatoid arthritis for 32 years agreed and noted
the importance of assistance with assistive devices
and accommodations that allowed her to attend
University. However, she had not yet secured a job
perhaps in part because of inadequate accommoda-
tion of her needs in job interviews:
I received 4 years of University funding to get my
Bachelor of Business Administration degree. But I was
only given temporary jobs. None were permanent. They
also provided a scooter to get me around the University.
Had my books spliced and bound to make them lighter to
carry . . . . [This assistance was extremely important
because]. . . I only had a grade 11 education and went
and got my GED grade 12. I was unskilled and lacked
confidence. University gave me confidence and account-
ing skills but I seem to not be able to get past the
interview stage. When I go for an interview the seat I have
to sit on is usually too low for me to get off of without
assistance. I need a chair of a certain height. I passed the
entry level test for the federal government and then I
passed the officer level test. Got interviews but no job.
The women who commented on how government
employment assistance programs could be improved
had creative suggestions. One important theme was
the importance of developing programs promoting
more inclusive and supportive workplaces. As one
woman with spinal cord injury who was critical of
wage subsidies to employers put it:
Instead of talking of compensating the poor employer for
the loss of productivity he or she suffers for the pain of
giving a job to a person with a disability, they should talk
about some kind of encouragement to those enterprises
that try to eliminate ableism in the workplace.
Another woman with psychiatric disability sug-
gested that assistance programs aimed at enhancing
accommodation and support might take the form of
a mentoring system:
What about a mentoring system where people in [the]
workplace support the person in an equitable way? A
weekly check-in like what resources do you need. Is
there any technology we can provide, such as maybe
organizing the workspace! . . . . [Also] can an employ-
ment program provide grants to employers for extra
support [?].
Others made similar suggestions that employers be
assisted in making needed accommodations and
creating more inclusionary work environments:
including encouraging employers to institute more
flexible work hours and discouraging workplace
changes (e.g. introduction of inaccessible computer
systems) that marginalise workers with disabilities.
One woman suggested that a government agency be
established with the mandate of ensuring that work
environments are adapted to the needs of workers
with disabilities. In a broader vein, a woman living
with brain injury argued for programs which tackled
systemic discrimination in the labour market and
154 V. Chouinard

workplace, suggesting that a focus on what the job-
seeker was ‘doing wrong’ was counterproductive:
Find out what the real issues blocking employment for
disabled women [are] such as ableist attitudes, age
discrimination, demands for fast efficiency over careful
(perhaps time-taking) task completion, and fear of
having to make a work accommodation for a disabled
employee. Then target these issues (as opposed to
‘blaming the victim’ (the job seeker)). Blaming the job-
seeker and focusing on her ‘problems’ with resume,
interview etc. is demoralising and depressing for her.
Other suggestions on strategies that could enable
women with disabilities to find or create more
supportive work environments included placing
greater emphasis on pre-screening employers to
ensure a commitment to an inclusive workplace
and self-employment.
Another theme was the need for assistance pro-
grams that took better account of diverse work
histories and skills. One woman with mobility
impairment said:
Take into account the age and [job training/work]
experience of clients. Most older clients have done a
million resumes. I found that part of the assistance
useless.
Another suggested:
Make programs more inclusive of disabled people in
diverse occupations and with diverse work histories.
Don’t assume programs should be directed at getting
entry level jobs regardless of experience, education,
skills.
Echoing other women’s calls for assistance aimed
at reducing discrimination in the workplace, another
woman argued for assistance aimed at diminishing
the discrimination women with disabilities face from
professional colleagues:
There needs to be a program(s) geared to highly skilled
and highly educated disabled people . . . . . . Too often
programs geared for the disabled assume the individual
has few skills and little education and the agency is ill-
equipped to find anything beyond menial work. Also for
these highly skilled and educated disabled people, there
needs to be a focus on reducing discrimination in the
workplace from colleagues in the same profession.
A third theme was the need to provide training in
skills other than basic ones such as resume writing. A
woman with mobility impairment since birth ob-
served:
I think that there is currently a disconnect between
employment assistance programs and the labour market.
The focus seems to be on soft skills focusing on
projecting a positive attitude, being as flexible as the
market and workshops on cold calling and building
healthy self-esteem . . . . I am offered a lot of workshops
few of which I actually attend now because they provide
conflicting information about resume writing and cover
letters.
Another woman suggested that programs empha-
sise skills needed to cope in workplaces, such as time
management, rather than resume writing. Others
emphasised the need for ‘hard’ skills for example in
computing and technical trades. Clearly, these
women felt that more could be done to ensure that
they had the skills needed to find and keep paid work.
The women had other suggestions about how
assistance programs could be improved. These
included increasing access to job portals that could
match women receiving disability benefits with
potential employers and attaching wage subsidies to
the disabled worker, as opposed to a particular job, to
give the worker greater flexibility in choosing
employers and leverage in negotiating conditions of
employment such as accommodations.
It is important to keep in mind that the women
who responded to this survey were not representative
of women with disabilities in Canada (e.g. being
relatively well educated). Nonetheless, their experi-
ences of employment assistance programs and ideas
about how these might be improved provide at least a
partial glimpse into some of the limitations of
existing employment assistance. These include em-
ployer abuse of wage subsidy programs and lack of
training in job skills needed by this particular group
of women with disabilities.
Ways ahead: Future research and directions in
employment assistance
The concerns about employment assistance that
women with disabilities in this survey expressed,
and the paucity of information on the experiences of
women and men with disabilities with government
employment assistance in Canada and elsewhere,
suggest that there is a pressing need for future
research that probes experiences of employment
assistance in greater detail and draws on a more
representative sample. Given the inherent limitations
of online surveys as a data collection method, future
studies could also employ cognitive testing as well as
more ‘data-rich’ methods such as in-depth inter-
views. Longitudinal studies of experiences of em-
ployment assistance, tracing experiences of
government programs as well as of finding and
keeping paid work over time, would help to shed
light on the dynamic connections between receiving
specific forms of employment assistance and finding
and keeping jobs. Although a case can be made for
Employment assistance for women with disabilities 155

studies that focus on disabled women’s experiences
of employment assistance, given their especially
disadvantaged locations in the labour market, con-
sideration could also be given to studies which probe
both the experiences of women and men with
disabilities with employment assistance – to help
pinpoint whether or not there are gendered differ-
ences in experiences of these programs.
In light of the creative suggestions that the disabled
women who responded to this survey had about how
government employment assistance could be im-
proved, it is important that future studies probe this
topic in greater detail – for instance gathering
additional information on why particular changes
are regarded as promising strategies to diminish the
marginalisation of women with disabilities in the
labour market. Clearly, there is both a pressing need
and great deal of scope for future research. It is
important that the results of future studies, as was the
case with the results of this study, be made available
to government agencies involved in the provision of
employment assistance to persons with disabilities.
What do the results reported in this article suggest
with regard to future directions in the government
employment assistance provided to women with
disabilities in Canada? With the caveat that it is
important to keep the limitations of the survey in
mind, the results suggest the following. First, that
existing forms of wage subsidy assistance may not
contribute to ongoing employment because at least
some employers let an employee go once subsidies
run out and hire a new employee to re-qualify for
subsidies. One possible way of addressing this might
be to make a period of employment beyond the
subsidy period a mandatory requirement of wage
subsidy programs. Consideration might also be given
to the suggestion of attaching wage subsidies to the
worker as opposed to a particular job – this could
give the disabled worker greater choice in employers.
It might also provide leverage in negotiations with
employers over such aspects of accommodation
needs as work hours [12].
The results reported here also suggest that
government assistance with finding a job may be
limited in effectiveness: at least sometimes of poor
quality, slow, in some cases not leading to employ-
ment and in others not leading to continuous
employment. This in turn suggests that it may be
important to review existing programs with regard to
the quality of staff training, size of caseloads and
strategies for locating employment. As one woman
suggested, complementing existing forms of assis-
tance with finding a job with a job portal, which
could help match disabled women with jobs and
employers, might be one way of ensuring that
assistance with finding a job was more efficient and
effective. Providing access to the portal for clients in
agency offices, including both access to a computer
and to assistance in using it if needed, could help to
diminish barriers to use of such a job locating service.
Third, the results of this survey suggest, that at least
for this particular group of women, training in basic
skills such as resume writing may be less effective and
appropriate than training in more advanced skills such
as computing, time management and strategies for
negotiating disability issues in the workplace.
Some women pointed to the need for assistance
programs to take into account the diverse needs of
women with disabilities in delivering training –
notably of those who were highly educated and with
professional work backgrounds. A related concern
was that women were being directed to menial, entry
level jobs despite more advanced training and skills.
Although the women who responded to this survey
certainly had suggestions on how existing forms of
employment assistance could be improved, they also
pointed to the need for greater emphasis on
addressing systemic barriers to employment: provid-
ing incentives to employers who demonstrated a
commitment to making work environments more
inclusive and supportive of workers with disabilities,
finding ways of diminishing discriminatory practices
amongst co-workers of professional disabled women,
instituting legislation that would prohibit the intro-
duction of computer technologies that marginalised
workers with disabilities, and, more generally, shift-
ing the focus of employment assistance programs
away from ‘what’s wrong with’ an individual and
toward systemic issues such as discrimination, lack of
accommodation of needs or of different ways of
completing work tasks and employer fears about
accommodating the needs of workers with disability.
Addressing these kinds of issues would contribute to
a much-needed shift away from the individualistic
focus that has dominated disability policy in Canada
[15,17].
Perhaps most importantly, the results reported in
this study point to the need to consult more closely
with women with disabilities on whether or not
existing forms of employment assistance are meeting
their needs, if not, how they might be improved, and
on the kinds of assistance they would like to see in
the future. By giving diverse women with disabilities
a louder voice in the policy process, we can help to
ensure that employment assistance makes a positive
difference not only in their individual working lives
but also in challenging the many systemic barriers to
employment that they face.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the women who participated
in this survey for sharing their experiences of
156 V. Chouinard

employment and employment assistance and for
their many thoughtful comments on how the
employment assistance provided to women with
disabilities can be improved.
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Appendix: Disabled women’s experiences of employment and employment assistance in Canada
Background information
1. What type of disability or illness do you have?
2. How long have you had this?
3. In what province do you live?
4. Do you live in an ______ urban or ________ rural area?
5. What level of schooling have you completed?
_______ Public _______ High School _______ Post-Secondary ______ Graduate
Experiences of employment
6. Are you currently ______ employed _______ self-employed ______ unemployed and looking for work
______ unemployed and not looking for work?
7. If you are employed do you work ______ full-time ______ part-time?
8. Have you held jobs in the past? _____ Yes ______ No
9. If yes, what jobs were these? (please list all and indicate whether part-time or full-time)
10. How long did you work at each of these jobs?
Employment assistance for women with disabilities 157

11. Were there aspects of the work environment or attitudes of others that made it difficult for you to do
these jobs?
12. Overall is it fair to say that your jobs have paid enough to live on comfortably?
____ Always _____ Usually _____ Seldom _____ Never
13. If you have worked for employers, have they been willing to accommodate your disability-related work
needs?
_____ Always ____ Usually ____ Seldom ____ Never
14. What kinds of accommodations have you had?
15. Have you experienced barriers to finding and/or keeping paid work?
16. If yes, what have the most important of these barriers been?
Experiences of employment assistance
17. Have you received assistance with finding and/or keeping a paid job through government programs?
___ Yes ___ No
18. If yes, what kinds of employment assistance have you received?
19. If yes, what government agency or program was this assistance provided through?
20. If you have received assistance with employment through government programs, how important has this
assistance been in helping you find and keep paid work?
_____ of very little importance _____ somewhat important
_____ very important _____ extremely important
21. Please explain your reasons for rating the importance of government assistance in this way.
22. Are there ways in which government employment assistance could be improved?
23. Is there anything you would like to add about your experiences of employment and/or government
employment assistance?
158 V. Chouinard