Employment and Vision Impairment
Image of a sign on a grass verge. The sign has the words “Now Hiring” printed in black on a white background, with a red border.
Despite disability laws, high rates of unemployment exist among people with vision impairment. In this blog post, I discuss some key findings from a recent review article entitled “Towards identifying gaps in employment integration of people living with vision impairment: a scoping review”.
How big is the problem?
Research across three developed countries, including Australia, Canada, and New Zealand demonstrate rates of employment among people with visual impairment of between 24% and 32%. These rates are less than half those for the sighted populations of those countries (64-84%).
Employment is a very important part of adult life. In addition to allowing a person financial independence and security, it affords social status, defines adulthood and identity, and allows people to make a meaningful contribution to society. Unemployment can lead to social, emotional, and psychological issues and overall lower quality of life. For people with disability, employment can also help to reduce their risk of social isolation.
What are the barriers to starting out in the workplace?
A plethora of issues were raised in this article, here are a few that stood out for me.
If we start at the very beginning, considering childhood experiences, many children with vision impairment are educated in mainstream settings. This is absolutely how it should be, but one consequence of this is that, because vision impairment is a low incidence disability group, visually impaired students may never have met another child or adult with visual impairment. This unfortunately deprives them of visually impaired role models, which for some, may have been hugely beneficial.
When it comes to choosing a career, preconceived ideas from within the sighted community can pose more limitations than the visual impairment, with students with vision impairment, frequently steered away from careers they may be interested in, and instead encouraged into ones perceived as feasible by the sighted adults around them.
Once a student with visual impairment has settled on a career, there are often challenges making the transition from educational settings into the workforce. We have disability laws to protect against discrimination, yet often, these are not well understood, and poorly implemented by prospective employers.
What about acquired vision loss?
Of course, not everyone with vision impairment has grown up visually impaired. People who acquire vision loss as adults face a different set of challenges. While they often do not lack work experience, they have to relearn how to perform their work. More years of experience, breadth of skills, leadership and seniority can be protective factors for retaining employment, but there are also employer-based determining factors. Generally, those working in medium to large workplaces, and in public roles, over private employment settings, are more likely to retain their employment.
Are we improving?
Maybe….?
Even right now, in a climate of labour shortages, people with visual impairment face challenges integrating into the workforce, so there is still a way to go.
Historically, people with disabilities were channeled into something called ‘sheltered employment/workshop’, which involved them being hired to specific roles and employed via a separate channel. Problems with this system were that it restricted options and often pay was not in line with the wider workforce. In most countries, including Australia, there has been a move away from sheltered work programs.
Things that help
People who have good social support are more likely to succeed in obtaining employment. Social support can be split into 4 categories:
Esteem support: encouragement and equal treatment from family, educators, workplaces, and the wider community.
Instrumental support: tangible aids and services offered through schools, rehabilitation organisations and workplaces.
Informational support: guidance in overcoming obstacles, information sharing, advice, and suggestions. This can come from parents, peers, role models, rehabilitation professionals, and workplaces.
Companionship support: strong connections with peers, family, and the wider community, extending to recreational activities.
What more can be done?
A collaborative approach would help. Schools and tertiary education settings need to help students with vision impairment to plug gaps and address skills deficits, to ensure they are viewed as eligible candidates (acknowledging that not all students with VI require this: some do just fine on their own). Ensuring full access to internships and career fairs which have been made accessible for people with visual impairment can further assist with smoothing the transition from study to employment. Employment agencies can play a role by assisting prospective employers to identify qualified candidates, capable of meeting their workplace demands.
More work is needed to address accessibility issues in the workplace, these include both physical and digital access. Whilst legislation exists to prevent this, in reality, there are often issues in implementation, resulting in barriers continuing to exist. Engagement of vocational rehabilitation professionals and eyecare professionals with prospective employers could also improve understanding of what true inclusion looks like.
Interestingly, the article highlights that rehabilitation practice often ceases once employment is obtained, with no follow-up. Continued support throughout the employment journey could allow for the address of issues which amount to workplace discrimination, potentially improving employment retention for people with visual impairment.
In conclusion
As with most things in low vision, multidisciplinary habilitation/rehabilitation is important. Professionals who may be involved include (but are not limited to): teachers trained in visual impairment, orientation and mobility professionals, vision rehabilitation specialists, assistive technology specialists, and occupational therapists. We need to ensure good social support from families, friends, colleagues, and the wider community. And we need to find a way to provide authentic role models for students with vision impairment. Of course, improving employment rates of visually impaired people would provide more role models for future generations.
Reference for the original journal article:
Ogedengbe, Tosin Omonye, Sukhai, Mahadeo, and Wittich, Walter. ‘Towards Identifying Gaps in Employment Integration of People Living with Vision Impairment: A Scoping Review’. 1 Jan. 2024 : 317 – 330.