ACCESS TO EMPLOYMENT FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS BEFORE EMPLOYMENT

Abstract

Preparation and access to the labour market of people with disabilities has improved along the past four decades as a result of the demand of civil society, families and people with disabilities themselves. However, little is known about the particular difficulties that people with mental illness face when trying to access an employment and try to keep it, their employability being often disregarded to the point that they sometimes hide their disability to their employers and colleagues in order to be able to enter employment. This paper attempts to cover the specific obstacles that people with mental illness have to address and to discuss whether or not they find the support of specific measures that take into account their particular needs. In order to accomplish our aim, we structure the paper in three sections: in the first one, we review the sources of information available in Spain and we assess the possibilities we find in them for our purpose, on the one hand; and the limitations that these sources entail and that will affect our work on the other hand. The second section focuses upon the different legislative measures that have been con-ceived, planned and developed along the years. In doing so, we follow the same order of the measures that were initially stablished by the LISMI, the Law passed in 1982 that was a land-mark in the understanding of disability and handicap in the country and that has been the framework valid to structure any new development along the past four decades in terms of educational, social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities. This section is divided in two subsections, one on ordinary employment and a second one on protected employment. Each subsection covers the different measures that have a legal reference, namely: the reserve quote of 2% for companies that employ more than 50 workers; access to public employment for people with disabilities; self-employment of people with disabilities; supported employment programs, labour or work-enclaves, and special employment centers. The structure of the different subsections is similar: a normative definition of the measure, an analysis of the available data and finally, a subsection on what is the situation of the measure regarding its impact upon people with mental illness and what could be done to improve its effectiveness. The third and final section discusses the implications of our findings, while also draws attention to the need of more precise, stable and sustainable sets of data that allow researchers but also policy-makers and employers and unions to plan proper measures to facilitate the integration of people with mental illness in the labour market. In section one we portray the two main sources of information, consisting of the Olivenza Report (the 2019 version is the latest one) and the National Institute of Statistics reports (we have used data from 2019) as well as the Observatory of Employment and Disability (also data from 2019). These being the main sources of data in the country, the problem we have found is the difficulty to identify mental illness as a particular kind of disability, often mixed, mingled or dissolved in other disability types, which leads to confusion and lack of precision, as mental illness is considered as intellectual disability, which it is clearly not. Therefore, in 2019 we have found very similar problems to those already pointed to by the Olivenza report on the situation of disability in Spain in 2019, indicating three obstacles we have also faced: lack of sources; methodological differences used to measure disability as well as the variabil-ity in frequency and sequence to obtain the data, something that is not amended whenever the date are claimed and updated. The second section of the article starts with a general overview on the main laws ruling the object of our paper, the LISMI in 1982 and the General Law on Disability approved in 2013; consisting of an update of the previous with the relevant change of focus from the difficulties and limitations into the capacities and possibilities, therefore with a much more modern approach and one according to current scientific developments and social demands as well. A review of the different legislative measure follows that introduction, starting with the reserve quote of the 2% in companies hiring more than 50 workers, this being one of the most inclusive measures insofar it consists of employing someone in the ordinary labour market. The legislation covering this quote is explained, and we specify what are the rules behind the calculation of the quote and what percentage of disability is needed to apply for the reserve quote. The paper also presents how can this reserve quote be avoided, an exception in the legislation that yields way to several of the other measures, most of which are not as inclusive as the reserve quote should be. The second measure reviewed in the paper is access to public employment, which consists of a particular application of the reserve quote in the case of the public administrations (national, regional and local) and that has proved useful yet with two necessary considerations: the impact of the 2008 financial crisis upon public employment due to the austerity measures applied by the European Union has been a consid-erable reduction of jobs available in the public sector, the second amendment related to the level of qualification that the public administration reserves for people with disability, which often leads to low qualified positions and therefore has an impact upon differential access to public employment. Like in the previous case, the lack of proper data invites us to suggest hypothesis on how the measure benefits or not people with mental illness specifically. The third measure we consider is that of self-employment which, to our surprise, despite added difficulties one may consider for people with disabilities has reached a larger percentage than that of the public administration. However, these data must be read with caution, as the coverage of self-employment is strongly related to the type of disability and this implies that people with mental illness are often out of this equation. Fourth we address supported employment, ruled in Spain in 2007 and which consists of an adaptation of a position in the ordinary labour market through staff trained to develop the necessary adaptation. This section shows the difficulties that people with mental illness face in entering the ordinary labour market without proper support, whilst this is often provided as if they were people with intellectual disabilities. We move then onto supported employment. The first subsection covers the ‘jewel of the crown’ among all measures, special employment centers, those employing by large most of the people with disabilities (and people with mental illness among them) even if they have become in fact a segregated labour market and therefore the least inclusive among the different measures. Then we move into labour enclaves, which are a measure so complex in bureaucratic terms that few companies opt for it. We finish the paper claiming for better and more precise data in order to make visible mental illness, to address it differently to intellectual disability, in order to be precise in policy planning and in providing appropriate support measures.