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Impact of social factors on labour discrimination of disabled women
Research in Developmental Disabilities 30 (2009) 1115–1123
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Research in Developmental Disabilities
Review
Impact of social factors on labour discrimination of disabled women Jose´ Monde´jar-Jime´nez *, Manuel Vargas-Vargas, Marı´a-Leticia Meseguer-Santamarı´a, Juan-Antonio Monde´jar-Jime´nez Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history: Received 16 June 2009 Received in revised form 12 July 2009 Accepted 21 July 2009
Disabled women suffer from a double labour discrimination due to their gender and their disability. In rural areas, in addition, they also suffer from a lack of specific services, the isolation of the disabled associations, problems with public transport, the dispersion of population centres, and a limited access to information that could improve their chances of entering the labour market. The current work adopts a constructivist perspective on disability and offers a preliminary examination of the influence of social factors, such as the rural or urban nature of the disabled women’s place of residence, the assistance they receive from their family or outside the family, the quantity of information they receive about the labour market, and their educational level, on the activity and employment status of this group of people. ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Economics of disability Labour integration Disabled woman
Contents 1. 2.
3. 4.
Introduction . . . . . . Method . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. Participants. 2.2. Model . . . . . 2.3. Variables . . . Results . . . . . . . . . . Discussion . . . . . . . References . . . . . . .
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* Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 902 204 100; fax: +34 902 204 130. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Monde´jar-Jime´nez). 0891-4222/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2009.07.013
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1. Introduction Europe and the rest of the Western world have seen substantial advances in social policy in recent decades, particularly with respect to disability. The ultimate goal has been to understand the difficulties of disabled people, and how to eliminate or reduce the discrimination that this group of people suffers. One of the fundamental changes has been in the conception of the disability phenomenon itself. This has gone from the medical model to the social theory of disability, or the constructivist model (Schalock, 1997). The constructivist model associates disability with physical, social and attitudinal barriers or institutional structures rather than with personal impairments (Imrie, 1997). Labour integration is often fundamental for the social and personal development of this group of people, and is consequently one of the cornerstones of social policies in the field of disability. In the past 30 years, international studies on disability and the labour market have been dominated by the analysis of the population in general or of men in particular (e.g., Bound, Schoenbaum, Stinebrickner, & Waidmann, 1999; Johnson & Lambrinos, 1985; Kidd, Sloane, & Ferko, 2000; Parson, 1980; Parsons, 1982; Reimers, 1983; Stern, 1989), and many of the studies focus on the impact of health factors. Analysis by gender is less frequent, with Baldwin and Johnson’s (1995) work standing out. These authors attribute more than 50% of the salary differences in US women to the phenomenon of disability. In the case of Spain, the labour market problems of disabled people are addressed by the Spanish Institute for the Elderly and Social Services (Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales, 1998), the Spanish Economic and Social Council (Consejo Econo´mico y Social, 1995, 2003), Malo (2001, 2003), Jime´nez (2002), the Royal Board on Disability (Cantarero & Pascual, 2005; Jime´nez & Huete, 2003; Jorda´n de Urrı´es et al., 2005; Paga´n & Marchante, 2004; Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad, 2002). These studies take different approaches, but all find important differences between disabled people and the population in general. Focusing on the labour market problems of disabled women, studies such as Gime´nez and Ramos (2003), Iglesias (2003), Ramos (2004), Da´vila (2006) and Da´vila and Malo (2006) find that this group still suffers a double labour discrimination because the political and institutional measures adopted to tackle the social causes of this phenomenon are acting only slowly. At the Spanish regional level, studies on disability and the labour market are still very scarce. Two studies in particular stand out: Malo and Paga´n (2005) for Andalusia (southern Spain), and the Association of Paraplegics and Disabled of Toledo (Asociacio´n de Paraple´jicos y Grandes Minusva´lidos de Toledo, 2006) for the central Spanish region of Castilla-La Mancha. Charroalde and Ferna´ndez (2006) analyse rurality as a possible determinant of personal and labour independence among disabled people. These authors note that living in rural areas is a disadvantage in many aspects of life, particularly for disabled people. Jenaro and Flores (2007) come to similar conclusions. Their study, promoted by the State Representative Platform for the Physically Disabled (PREDIF), uses a survey of 769 people living in rural areas (of which 408 are disabled, and 361 relatives of disabled) to analyse the needs and aspirations of the disabled and their relatives. These authors coincide in stressing the need for active measures to correct the disadvantages found. Thus being disabled, female, and a resident in a rural area limit opportunities and hinder incorporation into the labour market. In addition, a perverse effect arises, since the isolation of disabled women, the dispersion and low density of rural population centres, and the difficulty in accessing services and information, lead to an increase in the discrimination. This vicious circle is known as the Matthew effect (Deleeck, 1979), and it is essential that the authorities adopt measures to break it. In Spain there are 3,528,221 disabled people, or 9% of the total population, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute’s Disability, Impairment and Health Survey (Instituto Nacional de Estadı´stica, 2002). Of these, 2,055,251 are women, or 58% of the disabled population (Iglesias, 2003). In urban areas 8.5% of the total population is disabled, while in rural areas this figure rises to 11.5%. In Spain as a whole, 70% of the disabled women are inactive, and this figure rises to 85% in Castilla-La Mancha. According to figures from the Second Action Plan for People with Disabilities 2003–2007 (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 2003), big differences exist in the activity rate between the disabled and able-bodied: 33.7% for disabled people, compared to 70% for the able-bodied population.
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The differences remain when the data are disaggregated by gender: among women the figures are 27.1% and 55.8%, and among men 39.3% and 84.4%, respectively. The above-mentioned plan has a section dedicated to the needs and problems of disabled people in the labour insertion process. This section mentions the difference between rural and urban areas and points to ‘‘. . . the prejudices and social barriers that are still very deeply rooted, particularly in the countryside, as well as the discrimination against the person and the social rejection because of their disability, which can often explain their feeling of low self-esteem and result in discrimination and social exclusion’’ (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 2003). In addition, Law 51/2003 of 2 December (LIONDAU) points out that there should be extra measures to tackle the increased discrimination in a number of circumstances, among which, and in particular, residence in a rural area. According to the study Disability in Figures (Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales, 2003), 164,896 disabled people live in Castilla-La Mancha, which is approximately 10% of the total population, and around 31% of this group live in rural areas. In this line, the Roving Programme of Attention and Visibilisation of Disability and Gender in Rural Areas, presented on 31 July, 2008 by the Spanish Coordinating Confederation of the Physically Handicapped for Castilla-La Mancha (COCEMFE) and the Women’s Institute of Castilla-La Mancha, aims to boost rural areas by favouring the active participation of disabled women and providing them with the education and tools necessary for personal autonomy and a full integration into society. For all this, it would be extremely interesting to understand the labour situation of the disabled women in rural areas, what factors of risk they present, and what measures could be adopted to alleviate the deficiencies found. Thus given the small amount of information available about the labour situation of disabled women in rural areas, studies that examine this area, such as Charroalde and Ferna´ndez (2006), are valuable efforts. For Castilla-La Mancha, the Qualitative Study of the Situation of Disabled Women in Castilla-La Mancha (Bayot, 2006), edited by COCEMFE, is particularly useful. This study examines the social problems of disabled women in that autonomous region. In particular, the section examining the economic and labour situation of this group of women is a valuable source of statistical information. Thus the current work uses this source of information, and from a constructivist perspective examines the effect of social factors, such as residence in rural areas, the assistance the women receive from the family or outside the family, and the access to information, on the activity and employment status of disabled women in Castilla-La Mancha. 2. Method 2.1. Participants The statistical information analysed consists of a sample of 220 questionnaires, the respondents of which are disabled women living in the five provinces of Castilla-La Mancha. The raising factor is 750, which should be interpreted bearing in mind the general difficulty in accessing this population, the response rate, and the extensive geographic distribution of this autonomous region of Spain. The distribution of the sample by disability type shows that by far the majority of the sample (64.4%) have a physical disability, 12% have mixed disabilities, 9.8% a sensory disability, and 8% a mental disability. The distribution by severity shows that 11.1% suffer a disability of less than 34%, 31.6% a disability between 34% and 50%, 23.6% between 50% and 67%, and 24% more than 67%. The sample was obtained by representative sampling from each of the five provinces by age range carried out by the Labour Integration Services and associations of the disabled people’s movement. The interviews were personal, and conducted by previously trained technicians from COCEMFE/ Castilla-La Mancha. 2.2. Model In order to examine the importance of the social factors that influence disabled women’s incorporation into the labour market, this work centres on two perspectives: the women’s economic activity status (active/inactive), on the one hand, and their employment status (employed/ unemployed), on the other.
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These two variables are dichotomous, so the logical technique to use is binary logistic regression. This is a multivariate analysis technique in which the dependent variables are dichotomous and the independent variables can be quantitative (discrete or continuous) or qualitative (with two or more categories). The statistical model expresses the probability of a category of the dependent variable by using a logistic transformation of a linear combination of the independent variables: PðYÞ ¼
eb0
P
1 þ eb0
bi X i
P
bi X i
(1)
where P(Y) is the probability of having one of the categories of the dependent variable and bi are the coefficients of each variable Xi in the model. Equivalently, the model can express the odds ratio (OR) of the category of the dependent variable as a linear regression on the independent variables: ln
k X PðYÞ ¼ b0 þ bi X i 1 PðYÞ i¼1
(2)
The coefficients are calculated by the maximum likelihood method, and a coefficient being significant (p < 0.05) means that a relation exists between that independent variable and the dependent variable. If an independent variable is dichotomous, the exponent of its regression coefficient b is equivalent to the OR. If the independent variable is qualitative with more than two categories, dichotomous dummy variables are generated for each category except the reference category. Finally, if the independent variable is quantitative, the exponent indicates the increase in probability of having event Y of the dependent variable for each unit increase in the independent variable. 2.3. Variables The dependent variables considered in this work are as follows: - EMPLOYED: dichotomous variable that equals 1 if the woman is employed according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute’s (INE) classification, and 0 otherwise. - ACTIVE: dichotomous variable that equals 1 if the woman is active according to the INE’s classification and 0 otherwise.The explanatory variables are as follows: - RESIDENCE: place of residence of disabled woman; equals 0 if municipality is considered rural according to INE’s classification (population less than 10,000), and 1 otherwise. - TYPE: type of disability; categories are: mental, physical, sensory, and mixed. - SEVERITY: the population is divided into two groups, those with less than 50% disability and those with more than 50% disability. The authors initially considered a greater level of disaggregation, but in the linearity analysis the logistic regression is non-linear, so following Jovell (1995) they opted for a dichotomous classification. - EDUCATION: the population is divided into four strata: no education, primary education, secondary education, and higher education. - INFORMATION: measures the availability of information on labour topics for this group; categories are: none, little, sufficient, and a lot. - FAMILY_ASSISTANCE: assistance received from relatives; from a minimum of 1 (never) to a maximum of 4 (always). - SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE: assistance received from official bodies or associations, or from non-related neighbours or friends etc.; from a minimum of 1 (never) to a maximum of 4 (always). The two final variables are a convex linear combination of the items in which the women are asked if they have received assistance from different people or organisations, measured on a 4-point Likert scale (never, sometimes, often, always). For the variable FAMILY_ASSISTANCE, the relatives
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considered are partner, father, mother, siblings, and children. For the variable SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE the assistance comes from work colleagues, neighbours, friends, home assistance professionals, centres for women, disabled associations, and other organisms. The items are weighted by their standard deviations to capture the differences in the variations of the items, in order to allow a greater statistical discrimination between the values obtained in each case. 3. Results The authors first analyse the influence of the above factors on the activity status of disabled women in rural areas of Castilla-La Mancha. In a preliminary study (see Table 1) the Wald statistic of the variable measuring the educational level has a significance greater than 0.25, which is unacceptable according to Jovell’s (1995) criterion, so this variable is excluded from the analysis. The Wald statistic of FAMILY_ASSISTANCE is also significant, but given this variable’s importance in this work the authors opt to retain it provisionally. The authors then estimate the coefficients for the interactions between the variables: none are found to be significant. The final logistic regression model shows a big reduction in the likelihood ratio (247.134). This reduction is statistically significant according to the omnibus test (38.385; p = 0.000). The Hosmer and Lemeshow statistic shows no statistically significant difference between the observed and expected frequencies (7.874; p = 0.446). The Nagelkerke R2 statistic is significant, but its value is relatively low (0.224). Table 2 shows the estimations of the coefficients, the Wald statistics and their significance, and the odds ratios and their confidence intervals. As the table shows, the severity of disability has a regression coefficient that is significantly distinct from zero (Wald = 4.863; p = 0.027), and the exponent of the coefficient is 0.5, meaning that the group with the highest level of disability is half as likely to be active. The type of disability also has a significant Wald statistic (Wald = 4.338; p = 0.037) and an OR of 1.586, indicating that the physically disabled women are more likely to be active than the mentally disabled women, and the respondents with a sensory disability are more likely still. The coefficient of the variable measuring the information about the labour market available (Wald = 5.802; p = 0.016) also shows a significant association with Table 1 Estimated values of logistic regression for active variable.
RESIDENCE FAMILY_ASSISTANCE SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE INFORMATION TYPE SEVERITY EDUCATION Constant
B
SE
Wald
df
Sig.
Exp(B)
95% CI for exp(B)
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Lower
Upper
.933 .141 .527 .333 .394 .390 .015 1.086
.341 .238 .326 .152 .229 .173 .189 1.103
7.470 .352 2.620 4.811 2.972 5.064 .007 .969
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
.006 .553 .105 .028 .085 .024 .935 .325
2.542 1.152 .590 1.395 1.483 .677 1.015 .338
1.302 .722 .312 1.036 .947 .482 .701
4.964 1.835 1.118 1.879 2.322 .951 1.471
Table 2 Estimated values of final model for active variable. B
RESIDENCE FAMILY_ASSISTANCE SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE INFORMATION TYPE SEVERITY Constant
B
SE
Wald
df
Sig.
Exp(B)
95% CI for exp(B)
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
1.012 .235 .557 .326 .461 .694 1.485
.315 .222 .298 .135 .221 .315 1.004
10.334 1.117 3.510 5.802 4.338 4.863 2.188
1 1 1 1 1 1 1
.001 .291 .061 .016 .037 .027 .139
2.752 1.264 .573 1.386 1.586 .500 .227
1.484 .818 .320 1.063 1.028 .270
5.100 1.954 1.026 1.807 2.448 .926
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the activity status, with the disabled women 38.6% more likely to be active for each unit rise in the level of information received. Looking at the variables measuring the assistance received, the estimation of the model shows that these have a moderate association with the activity status of the disabled women. In the case of FAMILY_ASSISTANCE, the OR equals 1.264, which is not significant but it does indicate that the sample women are more likely to be active as the family assistance increases. In the case of SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE, the OR equals 0.573, which means a negative relation exists between social assistance and the probability of being active. This reflects the greater autonomy of the economically active disabled women. Finally, the relation between RESIDENCE and activity status is significant (Wald = 10.334; p = 0.001). In this case, the OR equals 2.752, meaning that the disabled women are almost three times more likely to be active in urban areas than in rural areas. The second analysis in this work aims to determine if these factors have a greater influence on the employed or unemployed members of the sample. For this, the authors estimate the model using EMPLOYED as the dependent variable. A preliminary analysis shows that the variables SEVERITY and INFORMATION are not significant (Table 3), so they are excluded from the analysis. The variable RESIDENCE is retained because of its importance in this work. The linearity test in this case recommends categorising the variable TYPE, since the results vary significantly. The final model shows a reduction in the likelihood ratio of 146.551, which is statistically significant according to the omnibus test (24.416; p = 0.001). No statistically significant difference exists between the observed and expected frequencies according to the Hosmer and Lemeshow statistic (7.429; p = 0.491). The Nagelkerke R2 statistic equals 0.238, which is significant. Table 4 shows the estimations of the coefficients, the Wald statistics and their significance, and the odds ratios and their confidence intervals. In this case, EDUCATION is significant (Wald = 7.265; p = 0.007), with an OR of 1.878. Thus for each unit rise in educational level, the probability of being employed increases by almost 88%. With regard to TYPE, globally the significance is slightly greater than 0.05 (Wald = 7.142; p = 0.068). For the category of physically disabled women, associated with dummy TYPE 1, the value is significant (Wald = 3.945; p = 0.047), with an exponent of 8.901, which means that this group is almost nine times more likely to be employed than the reference category (mentally disabled). For the women with a sensory disability (dummy TYPE 2), the value is also significant (Wald = 5.572; p = 0.018), with an exponent of 16.958. Thus this group of women is almost 17 times more likely to be employed than the reference category, and indeed this is the category with the highest rate of employment. Finally, the category of women with mixed disabilities has a non-significant coefficient. Unlike for the activity status, the variables measuring the assistance received are significant in the case of the employment status, indicating an association between the two variables and employment status. For the variable SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE (Wald = 4.078; p = 0.043) the OR equals 2.065, indicating a
Table 3 Estimated values of logistic regression for employed variable.
RESIDENCE FAMILY_ASSISTANCE SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE EDUCATION INFORMATION SEVERITY TYPE TYPE 1 TYPE 2 TYPE 3 Constant
B
SE
Wald
df
Sig.
Exp(B)
95% CI for exp(B)
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
.463 .724 .945 .724 .194 .559
.467 .281 .481 .253 .193 .420
2.224 2.882 1.516 .446
1.104 1.207 1.192 1.362
.983 6.614 3.861 8.207 1.016 1.768 7.365 4.061 5.702 1.619 .107
1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1
.321 .010 .049 .004 .314 .184 .061 .044 .017 .203 .743
Lower
.629 .485 2.573 2.064 .823 .572
.252 .279 .993 1.257 .564 .251
1.572 .842 6.668 3.387 1.202 1.303
9.243 17.841 4.555 .640
1.063 1.676 .441
80.389 189.919 47.075
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Table 4 Estimated values of final model for employed variable.
RESIDENCE FAMILY_ASSISTANCE SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE EDUCATION TYPE TYPE 1 TYPE 2 TYPE 3 Constant
B
SE
Wald
df
Sig.
Exp(B)
95% CI for exp(B)
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
.478 .619 .725 .630
.463 .269 .359 .234
2.186 2.831 1.523 1.327
1.101 1.199 1.186 1.224
1.065 5.305 4.078 7.265 7.142 3.945 5.572 1.650 1.177
1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1
.302 .021 .043 .007 .068 .047 .018 .199 .278
Lower
.620 .539 2.065 1.878
.250 .318 1.014 1.188
1.537 .912 4.203 2.969
8.901 16.958 4.588 .265
1.029 1.617 .449
76.976 177.900 46.892
strong positive relation between employment and social assistance received. In contrast, for the variable FAMILY_ASSISTANCE (Wald = 5.305; p = 0.021) the OR equals 0.539, indicating a negative relation between employment and family assistance. This reflects the greater level of autonomy that employment generates in disabled women. Finally, the relation between RESIDENCE and EMPLOYED is weak (Wald = 1.065; p = 0.302). In addition, the OR equals 0.620, which means that women living in rural areas are more likely to be employed, while those living in urban areas are more likely to be unemployed (OR = 1.613). 4. Discussion From a constructivist perspective, social factors are critical for understanding the problems of disabled women. Incorporation into the labour market is fundamental for an effective social integration of this group. Thus the current study offers a preliminary analysis of how social factors, such as rurality, the social and family assistance received, and access to information, influence this phenomenon. The logistic regression models estimated show that the variable measuring residence in a rural area has a strong effect on these women’s activity status, with the disabled women living in urban areas having almost three times more probability of being active than those living in rural areas. Disabled women living in rural areas are excluded from activity, socially somewhat cut off from the labour market and shut away in their family setting. This is also reflected in the greater level of family assistance that disabled women receive in these areas. Nevertheless, rurality has a much weaker influence on employment. In this case, the variable does not have a significant coefficient, and moreover, it has an odds ratio of less than 1. Thus disabled women have a greater probability of being employed in rural areas, or in other words, a greater probability of being unemployed in urban municipalities. This apparent paradox is the result of the small number of unemployed women in rural areas. Consistent with what has been said earlier, the disabled women who are not employed tend to be inactive to a greater extent in rural areas than in urban areas. Given the particular characteristic of this group of people, this work analyses the influence of family and social assistance on their working life. In this case, the impact is stronger on employment status than on activity status, where the regression coefficients are non-significant. The results show that a greater level of social assistance received is associated with a lower probability of being active, which reflects the social support for disabled women outside the labour market. On the other hand, a greater level of family assistance is associated with an increase in the probability of being active, which reflects the importance of a supportive family environment for the incorporation of disabled women into the labour market. The two coefficients are not significant, however, so these two aspects should be analysed at greater depth in future work to produce conclusive results. In contrast, in the case of the employment status the influence of the assistance is significant. The results show that family assistance has an odds ratio of less than 1, so the disabled women in employment show lower values in this variable, which reflects the independence that their labour status produces. Social assistance, meanwhile, has an odds
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ratio greater than 2, which indicates a strong positive association between employment status and the social assistance that this group of people receives. As expected, these women’s working life is not independent of the type of disability involved. The results show that the mentally disabled women surveyed are less likely to be active, and when they are active, they are also much less likely to be employed. Inclusion in the labour market appears to be much easier for the physically disabled women, who are almost 40% more likely to be active and almost nine times more likely to be employed. But it is the women with sensory disabilities who show the highest odds ratios. This reflects the relative success in their inclusion in the labour market, as a result of the efforts of the public authorities and some private organisations. The severity of the disability seems to affect only the activity status: the group of women suffering the highest level of disability is 50% less likely to be active. In contrast, its effect on the employment status is not significant. The odds ratio here also indicates a lower probability of being employed among the women with the most severe disabilities, although this result from the sample analysed here can be extrapolated only with caution. With regard to the level of information about the labour market available, this variable has a significant relation with both activity and employment status. As the amount of information received by the women surveyed increases, their probability of being active increases by almost 40%, and their probability of being employed increases by almost 90%. In rural areas, the population centres are smaller and more dispersed, and the transport and communication infrastructures are less welldeveloped, so disabled woman have less access to information. This increases their labour discrimination relative to disabled women living in urban areas. Thus on top of the double labour discrimination that disabled women suffer on account of their gender and their disability, it seems that a third discrimination must be added if the women live in rural areas. Rural communities are more traditional and accord the family a greater social importance, and the disabled enjoy increased protection in them. This fact is in itself positive, but it also tends to limit their degree of autonomy and their inclusion in the labour market to a greater extent than for disabled women living in urban areas. There is consequently a ‘‘concealment’’ of disabled women living in rural areas, where the access to information is also lower, and a certain degree of concentration of labour integration efforts in urban areas. All this produces a vicious circle that the specialist literature labels the Matthew effect. Law 51/2003 of 2 December (LIONDAU) mentions this concealment effect, and also points to the need for extra measures to alleviate increased discrimination in certain circumstances, such as, and in particular, residence in a rural area. References Asociacio´n de Paraple´jicos y Grandes Minusva´lidos de Toledo. (2006). Estudio de las necesidades formativas y salidas profesionales de los trabajadores pertenecientes al colectivo de discapacitados en el a´mbito de Castilla-La Mancha. Toledo: Author. Baldwin, M., & Johnson, W. G. (1995). Labor market discrimination against people with disabilities. Industrial Relations, 34(4), 555– 577. Bayot, A. (2006). Estudio cualitativo de la situacio´n de la mujer con discapacidad en Castilla-La Mancha. Toledo: COCEMFE. Bound, J., Schoenbaum, M., Stinebrickner, T. R., & Waidmann, T. (1999). The dynamic effects of health on the labor force transitions of older workers. Labour Economics, 6, 179–202. Cantarero, D., & Pascual, M. (2005). Economı´a y discapacidad en Espan˜a: Un nuevo reto ante la globalizacio´n. VII Jornadas de Polı´tica Econo´mica, Vigo, November 3–4. Charroalde, J., & Ferna´ndez, D. (2006). La discapacidad en el medio rural. Madrid: Comite´ Espan˜ol de Representantes de Personas con Discapacidad. Consejo Econo´mico y Social. (1995). Sobre la situacio´n del empleo de las personas con discapacidad y propuestas para su reactivacio´n (Coleccio´n Informes, 5). Madrid: Author. Consejo Econo´mico y Social. (2003). La situacio´n del empleo de las personas con discapacidad en Espan˜a (Coleccio´n Informes, 4). Madrid: Author. Da´vila, C. D. (2006). Discapacidad y ge´nero. Un estudio de participacio´n en el mercado de trabajo espan˜ol. Moneda y Cre´dito, 223, 127– 158. Da´vila, C. D., & Malo, M. A. (2006). Ge´nero, discapacidad y posicio´n familiar: La participacio´n laboral de las mujeres con discapacidad. Cuadernos Aragoneses de Economı´a, 16(1), 61–82. Deleeck, H. (1979). L´Effet Mathie. Droit Social, 11. Gime´nez, D., & Ramos, M. M. (2003). La discriminacio´n de las mujeres con discapacidad en Espan˜a. Revista del Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 45, 61–76. Iglesias, M. (2003). Empleo y mujer con discapacidad. In R. Casado & A. Cifuentes (Eds.), El acceso al empleo y a la universidad de las personas con discapacidad. Barreras y alternativas (pp. 95–101). Burgos: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Burgos. Imrie, R. (1997). Rethinking the relationships between disability, rehabilitation and society. Disability and Rehabilitation, 19, 263–271.
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Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales. (1998). Empleo y discapacidad. Madrid: Author. Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales. (2003). La Discapacidad en cifras. Madrid: Author. Instituto Nacional de Estadı´stica. (2002). Encuesta sobre Discapacidades, Deficiencias y Estado de Salud. Madrid: Author. Jenaro, C., & Flores, N. (2007). Necesidades en el medio rural de las personas con gran discapacidad fı´sica y sus familias. Madrid: Plataforma Representativa Estatal de Discapacitados Fı´sicos(PREDIF). Jime´nez, A. (2002). Los factores en el empleo de las personas con discapacidad. In Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad, Empleo privado de las personas con discapacidad (pp. 41–51). Madrid: Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad y Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales. Jime´nez, A., & Huete, A. (2003). La discapacidad en Espan˜a: Datos estadı´sticos. Aproximacio´n desde la Encuesta sobre Discapacidades, Deficiencias y Estado de Salud de 1999. Madrid: Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad. (Doc. 62/2003). Johnson, W., & Lambrinos, J. (1985). Wage discrimination against handicapped men and women. Journal of Human Resources, 20(2), 264–277. Jorda´n de Urrı´es, B., Verdugo, M. A., & Vicent, C. (2005). Ana´lisis de la evolucio´n del empleo con apoyo en Espan˜a. Madrid: Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad. (Doc. 59/2005). Jovell, A. J. (1995). Ana´lisis de regresio´n logı´stica. Madrid: CIS. Kidd, M. P., Sloane, P. J., & Ferko, I. (2000). Disability and the labour market: an analysis of British males. Journal of Health Economics, 19(6), 961–981. Malo, M. A. (2001). Discapacidad y participacio´n en el mercado de trabajo. In Instituto Nacional de Estadı´stica, Condiciones de Vida en Espan˜a y en Europa (pp. 281–306). Madrid: Author. Malo, M. A. (2003). Las personas con discapacidad en el mercado de trabajo espan˜ol. Revista del Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 46, 99–126. Malo, M. A., & Paga´n, R. (2005). Participacio´n laboral y discapacidad: El caso de la Comunidad Andaluza. Revista de Estudios Regionales, 74, 89–116. Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales. (2003). II Plan de Accio´n para las personas con discapacidad 2003-2007. Madrid: Secretarı´a General de Asuntos Sociales, Instituto de Migraciones y Servicios Sociales. Paga´n, R., & Marchante, A. J. (2004). Ana´lisis de las diferencias salariales por discapacidad en Espan˜a: el caso de los varones. Hacienda Pu´blica Espan˜ola/Revista de Economı´a Pu´blica, 171(4), 75–100. Parson, D. O. (1980). The Decline of male labor-force participation. Journal of Political Economy, 88, 117–134. Parsons, D. O. (1982). The male labour force participation decision: health, reported health, and economic incentives. Economica, 49(193), 81–91. Ramos, M. M. (2004). La formacio´n y el empleo de las mujeres con discapacidad: facilitar el acceso. Revista Especializada en Formacio´n y Empleo de los Colectivos en Riesgo de Exclusio´n, 3. Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad. (2002). Acceso de las personas con discapacidad al empleo pu´blico. 1985-1999. Madrid: Author. (Doc. 13/2002). Reimers, C. (1983). Labor market discrimination against Hispanic and Black men. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 65(4), 570– 579. Schalock, R. L. (1997). Can the concept of quality of life make a difference? In (Series Ed.) & & R. L. Schalock (Vol. Eds.), Application to persons with disabilities: Vol. II. Quality of life (pp. 245–267). Washington, DC: American Association of Mental Retardation. Stern, S. (1989). Measuring the effects of disability on labor force participation. Journal of Human Resources, 24(3), 361–395.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Research in Developmental Disabilities
Review
Impact of social factors on labour discrimination of disabled women Jose´ Monde´jar-Jime´nez *, Manuel Vargas-Vargas, Marı´a-Leticia Meseguer-Santamarı´a, Juan-Antonio Monde´jar-Jime´nez Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history: Received 16 June 2009 Received in revised form 12 July 2009 Accepted 21 July 2009
Disabled women suffer from a double labour discrimination due to their gender and their disability. In rural areas, in addition, they also suffer from a lack of specific services, the isolation of the disabled associations, problems with public transport, the dispersion of population centres, and a limited access to information that could improve their chances of entering the labour market. The current work adopts a constructivist perspective on disability and offers a preliminary examination of the influence of social factors, such as the rural or urban nature of the disabled women’s place of residence, the assistance they receive from their family or outside the family, the quantity of information they receive about the labour market, and their educational level, on the activity and employment status of this group of people. ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Economics of disability Labour integration Disabled woman
Contents 1. 2.
3. 4.
Introduction . . . . . . Method . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. Participants. 2.2. Model . . . . . 2.3. Variables . . . Results . . . . . . . . . . Discussion . . . . . . . References . . . . . . .
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* Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 902 204 100; fax: +34 902 204 130. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Monde´jar-Jime´nez). 0891-4222/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2009.07.013
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1. Introduction Europe and the rest of the Western world have seen substantial advances in social policy in recent decades, particularly with respect to disability. The ultimate goal has been to understand the difficulties of disabled people, and how to eliminate or reduce the discrimination that this group of people suffers. One of the fundamental changes has been in the conception of the disability phenomenon itself. This has gone from the medical model to the social theory of disability, or the constructivist model (Schalock, 1997). The constructivist model associates disability with physical, social and attitudinal barriers or institutional structures rather than with personal impairments (Imrie, 1997). Labour integration is often fundamental for the social and personal development of this group of people, and is consequently one of the cornerstones of social policies in the field of disability. In the past 30 years, international studies on disability and the labour market have been dominated by the analysis of the population in general or of men in particular (e.g., Bound, Schoenbaum, Stinebrickner, & Waidmann, 1999; Johnson & Lambrinos, 1985; Kidd, Sloane, & Ferko, 2000; Parson, 1980; Parsons, 1982; Reimers, 1983; Stern, 1989), and many of the studies focus on the impact of health factors. Analysis by gender is less frequent, with Baldwin and Johnson’s (1995) work standing out. These authors attribute more than 50% of the salary differences in US women to the phenomenon of disability. In the case of Spain, the labour market problems of disabled people are addressed by the Spanish Institute for the Elderly and Social Services (Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales, 1998), the Spanish Economic and Social Council (Consejo Econo´mico y Social, 1995, 2003), Malo (2001, 2003), Jime´nez (2002), the Royal Board on Disability (Cantarero & Pascual, 2005; Jime´nez & Huete, 2003; Jorda´n de Urrı´es et al., 2005; Paga´n & Marchante, 2004; Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad, 2002). These studies take different approaches, but all find important differences between disabled people and the population in general. Focusing on the labour market problems of disabled women, studies such as Gime´nez and Ramos (2003), Iglesias (2003), Ramos (2004), Da´vila (2006) and Da´vila and Malo (2006) find that this group still suffers a double labour discrimination because the political and institutional measures adopted to tackle the social causes of this phenomenon are acting only slowly. At the Spanish regional level, studies on disability and the labour market are still very scarce. Two studies in particular stand out: Malo and Paga´n (2005) for Andalusia (southern Spain), and the Association of Paraplegics and Disabled of Toledo (Asociacio´n de Paraple´jicos y Grandes Minusva´lidos de Toledo, 2006) for the central Spanish region of Castilla-La Mancha. Charroalde and Ferna´ndez (2006) analyse rurality as a possible determinant of personal and labour independence among disabled people. These authors note that living in rural areas is a disadvantage in many aspects of life, particularly for disabled people. Jenaro and Flores (2007) come to similar conclusions. Their study, promoted by the State Representative Platform for the Physically Disabled (PREDIF), uses a survey of 769 people living in rural areas (of which 408 are disabled, and 361 relatives of disabled) to analyse the needs and aspirations of the disabled and their relatives. These authors coincide in stressing the need for active measures to correct the disadvantages found. Thus being disabled, female, and a resident in a rural area limit opportunities and hinder incorporation into the labour market. In addition, a perverse effect arises, since the isolation of disabled women, the dispersion and low density of rural population centres, and the difficulty in accessing services and information, lead to an increase in the discrimination. This vicious circle is known as the Matthew effect (Deleeck, 1979), and it is essential that the authorities adopt measures to break it. In Spain there are 3,528,221 disabled people, or 9% of the total population, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute’s Disability, Impairment and Health Survey (Instituto Nacional de Estadı´stica, 2002). Of these, 2,055,251 are women, or 58% of the disabled population (Iglesias, 2003). In urban areas 8.5% of the total population is disabled, while in rural areas this figure rises to 11.5%. In Spain as a whole, 70% of the disabled women are inactive, and this figure rises to 85% in Castilla-La Mancha. According to figures from the Second Action Plan for People with Disabilities 2003–2007 (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 2003), big differences exist in the activity rate between the disabled and able-bodied: 33.7% for disabled people, compared to 70% for the able-bodied population.
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The differences remain when the data are disaggregated by gender: among women the figures are 27.1% and 55.8%, and among men 39.3% and 84.4%, respectively. The above-mentioned plan has a section dedicated to the needs and problems of disabled people in the labour insertion process. This section mentions the difference between rural and urban areas and points to ‘‘. . . the prejudices and social barriers that are still very deeply rooted, particularly in the countryside, as well as the discrimination against the person and the social rejection because of their disability, which can often explain their feeling of low self-esteem and result in discrimination and social exclusion’’ (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 2003). In addition, Law 51/2003 of 2 December (LIONDAU) points out that there should be extra measures to tackle the increased discrimination in a number of circumstances, among which, and in particular, residence in a rural area. According to the study Disability in Figures (Instituto de Mayores y Servicios Sociales, 2003), 164,896 disabled people live in Castilla-La Mancha, which is approximately 10% of the total population, and around 31% of this group live in rural areas. In this line, the Roving Programme of Attention and Visibilisation of Disability and Gender in Rural Areas, presented on 31 July, 2008 by the Spanish Coordinating Confederation of the Physically Handicapped for Castilla-La Mancha (COCEMFE) and the Women’s Institute of Castilla-La Mancha, aims to boost rural areas by favouring the active participation of disabled women and providing them with the education and tools necessary for personal autonomy and a full integration into society. For all this, it would be extremely interesting to understand the labour situation of the disabled women in rural areas, what factors of risk they present, and what measures could be adopted to alleviate the deficiencies found. Thus given the small amount of information available about the labour situation of disabled women in rural areas, studies that examine this area, such as Charroalde and Ferna´ndez (2006), are valuable efforts. For Castilla-La Mancha, the Qualitative Study of the Situation of Disabled Women in Castilla-La Mancha (Bayot, 2006), edited by COCEMFE, is particularly useful. This study examines the social problems of disabled women in that autonomous region. In particular, the section examining the economic and labour situation of this group of women is a valuable source of statistical information. Thus the current work uses this source of information, and from a constructivist perspective examines the effect of social factors, such as residence in rural areas, the assistance the women receive from the family or outside the family, and the access to information, on the activity and employment status of disabled women in Castilla-La Mancha. 2. Method 2.1. Participants The statistical information analysed consists of a sample of 220 questionnaires, the respondents of which are disabled women living in the five provinces of Castilla-La Mancha. The raising factor is 750, which should be interpreted bearing in mind the general difficulty in accessing this population, the response rate, and the extensive geographic distribution of this autonomous region of Spain. The distribution of the sample by disability type shows that by far the majority of the sample (64.4%) have a physical disability, 12% have mixed disabilities, 9.8% a sensory disability, and 8% a mental disability. The distribution by severity shows that 11.1% suffer a disability of less than 34%, 31.6% a disability between 34% and 50%, 23.6% between 50% and 67%, and 24% more than 67%. The sample was obtained by representative sampling from each of the five provinces by age range carried out by the Labour Integration Services and associations of the disabled people’s movement. The interviews were personal, and conducted by previously trained technicians from COCEMFE/ Castilla-La Mancha. 2.2. Model In order to examine the importance of the social factors that influence disabled women’s incorporation into the labour market, this work centres on two perspectives: the women’s economic activity status (active/inactive), on the one hand, and their employment status (employed/ unemployed), on the other.
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These two variables are dichotomous, so the logical technique to use is binary logistic regression. This is a multivariate analysis technique in which the dependent variables are dichotomous and the independent variables can be quantitative (discrete or continuous) or qualitative (with two or more categories). The statistical model expresses the probability of a category of the dependent variable by using a logistic transformation of a linear combination of the independent variables: PðYÞ ¼
eb0
P
1 þ eb0
bi X i
P
bi X i
(1)
where P(Y) is the probability of having one of the categories of the dependent variable and bi are the coefficients of each variable Xi in the model. Equivalently, the model can express the odds ratio (OR) of the category of the dependent variable as a linear regression on the independent variables: ln
k X PðYÞ ¼ b0 þ bi X i 1 PðYÞ i¼1
(2)
The coefficients are calculated by the maximum likelihood method, and a coefficient being significant (p < 0.05) means that a relation exists between that independent variable and the dependent variable. If an independent variable is dichotomous, the exponent of its regression coefficient b is equivalent to the OR. If the independent variable is qualitative with more than two categories, dichotomous dummy variables are generated for each category except the reference category. Finally, if the independent variable is quantitative, the exponent indicates the increase in probability of having event Y of the dependent variable for each unit increase in the independent variable. 2.3. Variables The dependent variables considered in this work are as follows: - EMPLOYED: dichotomous variable that equals 1 if the woman is employed according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute’s (INE) classification, and 0 otherwise. - ACTIVE: dichotomous variable that equals 1 if the woman is active according to the INE’s classification and 0 otherwise.The explanatory variables are as follows: - RESIDENCE: place of residence of disabled woman; equals 0 if municipality is considered rural according to INE’s classification (population less than 10,000), and 1 otherwise. - TYPE: type of disability; categories are: mental, physical, sensory, and mixed. - SEVERITY: the population is divided into two groups, those with less than 50% disability and those with more than 50% disability. The authors initially considered a greater level of disaggregation, but in the linearity analysis the logistic regression is non-linear, so following Jovell (1995) they opted for a dichotomous classification. - EDUCATION: the population is divided into four strata: no education, primary education, secondary education, and higher education. - INFORMATION: measures the availability of information on labour topics for this group; categories are: none, little, sufficient, and a lot. - FAMILY_ASSISTANCE: assistance received from relatives; from a minimum of 1 (never) to a maximum of 4 (always). - SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE: assistance received from official bodies or associations, or from non-related neighbours or friends etc.; from a minimum of 1 (never) to a maximum of 4 (always). The two final variables are a convex linear combination of the items in which the women are asked if they have received assistance from different people or organisations, measured on a 4-point Likert scale (never, sometimes, often, always). For the variable FAMILY_ASSISTANCE, the relatives
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considered are partner, father, mother, siblings, and children. For the variable SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE the assistance comes from work colleagues, neighbours, friends, home assistance professionals, centres for women, disabled associations, and other organisms. The items are weighted by their standard deviations to capture the differences in the variations of the items, in order to allow a greater statistical discrimination between the values obtained in each case. 3. Results The authors first analyse the influence of the above factors on the activity status of disabled women in rural areas of Castilla-La Mancha. In a preliminary study (see Table 1) the Wald statistic of the variable measuring the educational level has a significance greater than 0.25, which is unacceptable according to Jovell’s (1995) criterion, so this variable is excluded from the analysis. The Wald statistic of FAMILY_ASSISTANCE is also significant, but given this variable’s importance in this work the authors opt to retain it provisionally. The authors then estimate the coefficients for the interactions between the variables: none are found to be significant. The final logistic regression model shows a big reduction in the likelihood ratio (247.134). This reduction is statistically significant according to the omnibus test (38.385; p = 0.000). The Hosmer and Lemeshow statistic shows no statistically significant difference between the observed and expected frequencies (7.874; p = 0.446). The Nagelkerke R2 statistic is significant, but its value is relatively low (0.224). Table 2 shows the estimations of the coefficients, the Wald statistics and their significance, and the odds ratios and their confidence intervals. As the table shows, the severity of disability has a regression coefficient that is significantly distinct from zero (Wald = 4.863; p = 0.027), and the exponent of the coefficient is 0.5, meaning that the group with the highest level of disability is half as likely to be active. The type of disability also has a significant Wald statistic (Wald = 4.338; p = 0.037) and an OR of 1.586, indicating that the physically disabled women are more likely to be active than the mentally disabled women, and the respondents with a sensory disability are more likely still. The coefficient of the variable measuring the information about the labour market available (Wald = 5.802; p = 0.016) also shows a significant association with Table 1 Estimated values of logistic regression for active variable.
RESIDENCE FAMILY_ASSISTANCE SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE INFORMATION TYPE SEVERITY EDUCATION Constant
B
SE
Wald
df
Sig.
Exp(B)
95% CI for exp(B)
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Lower
Upper
.933 .141 .527 .333 .394 .390 .015 1.086
.341 .238 .326 .152 .229 .173 .189 1.103
7.470 .352 2.620 4.811 2.972 5.064 .007 .969
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
.006 .553 .105 .028 .085 .024 .935 .325
2.542 1.152 .590 1.395 1.483 .677 1.015 .338
1.302 .722 .312 1.036 .947 .482 .701
4.964 1.835 1.118 1.879 2.322 .951 1.471
Table 2 Estimated values of final model for active variable. B
RESIDENCE FAMILY_ASSISTANCE SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE INFORMATION TYPE SEVERITY Constant
B
SE
Wald
df
Sig.
Exp(B)
95% CI for exp(B)
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
1.012 .235 .557 .326 .461 .694 1.485
.315 .222 .298 .135 .221 .315 1.004
10.334 1.117 3.510 5.802 4.338 4.863 2.188
1 1 1 1 1 1 1
.001 .291 .061 .016 .037 .027 .139
2.752 1.264 .573 1.386 1.586 .500 .227
1.484 .818 .320 1.063 1.028 .270
5.100 1.954 1.026 1.807 2.448 .926
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the activity status, with the disabled women 38.6% more likely to be active for each unit rise in the level of information received. Looking at the variables measuring the assistance received, the estimation of the model shows that these have a moderate association with the activity status of the disabled women. In the case of FAMILY_ASSISTANCE, the OR equals 1.264, which is not significant but it does indicate that the sample women are more likely to be active as the family assistance increases. In the case of SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE, the OR equals 0.573, which means a negative relation exists between social assistance and the probability of being active. This reflects the greater autonomy of the economically active disabled women. Finally, the relation between RESIDENCE and activity status is significant (Wald = 10.334; p = 0.001). In this case, the OR equals 2.752, meaning that the disabled women are almost three times more likely to be active in urban areas than in rural areas. The second analysis in this work aims to determine if these factors have a greater influence on the employed or unemployed members of the sample. For this, the authors estimate the model using EMPLOYED as the dependent variable. A preliminary analysis shows that the variables SEVERITY and INFORMATION are not significant (Table 3), so they are excluded from the analysis. The variable RESIDENCE is retained because of its importance in this work. The linearity test in this case recommends categorising the variable TYPE, since the results vary significantly. The final model shows a reduction in the likelihood ratio of 146.551, which is statistically significant according to the omnibus test (24.416; p = 0.001). No statistically significant difference exists between the observed and expected frequencies according to the Hosmer and Lemeshow statistic (7.429; p = 0.491). The Nagelkerke R2 statistic equals 0.238, which is significant. Table 4 shows the estimations of the coefficients, the Wald statistics and their significance, and the odds ratios and their confidence intervals. In this case, EDUCATION is significant (Wald = 7.265; p = 0.007), with an OR of 1.878. Thus for each unit rise in educational level, the probability of being employed increases by almost 88%. With regard to TYPE, globally the significance is slightly greater than 0.05 (Wald = 7.142; p = 0.068). For the category of physically disabled women, associated with dummy TYPE 1, the value is significant (Wald = 3.945; p = 0.047), with an exponent of 8.901, which means that this group is almost nine times more likely to be employed than the reference category (mentally disabled). For the women with a sensory disability (dummy TYPE 2), the value is also significant (Wald = 5.572; p = 0.018), with an exponent of 16.958. Thus this group of women is almost 17 times more likely to be employed than the reference category, and indeed this is the category with the highest rate of employment. Finally, the category of women with mixed disabilities has a non-significant coefficient. Unlike for the activity status, the variables measuring the assistance received are significant in the case of the employment status, indicating an association between the two variables and employment status. For the variable SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE (Wald = 4.078; p = 0.043) the OR equals 2.065, indicating a
Table 3 Estimated values of logistic regression for employed variable.
RESIDENCE FAMILY_ASSISTANCE SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE EDUCATION INFORMATION SEVERITY TYPE TYPE 1 TYPE 2 TYPE 3 Constant
B
SE
Wald
df
Sig.
Exp(B)
95% CI for exp(B)
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
.463 .724 .945 .724 .194 .559
.467 .281 .481 .253 .193 .420
2.224 2.882 1.516 .446
1.104 1.207 1.192 1.362
.983 6.614 3.861 8.207 1.016 1.768 7.365 4.061 5.702 1.619 .107
1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1
.321 .010 .049 .004 .314 .184 .061 .044 .017 .203 .743
Lower
.629 .485 2.573 2.064 .823 .572
.252 .279 .993 1.257 .564 .251
1.572 .842 6.668 3.387 1.202 1.303
9.243 17.841 4.555 .640
1.063 1.676 .441
80.389 189.919 47.075
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Table 4 Estimated values of final model for employed variable.
RESIDENCE FAMILY_ASSISTANCE SOCIAL_ASSISTANCE EDUCATION TYPE TYPE 1 TYPE 2 TYPE 3 Constant
B
SE
Wald
df
Sig.
Exp(B)
95% CI for exp(B)
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
Lower
Upper
.478 .619 .725 .630
.463 .269 .359 .234
2.186 2.831 1.523 1.327
1.101 1.199 1.186 1.224
1.065 5.305 4.078 7.265 7.142 3.945 5.572 1.650 1.177
1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 1
.302 .021 .043 .007 .068 .047 .018 .199 .278
Lower
.620 .539 2.065 1.878
.250 .318 1.014 1.188
1.537 .912 4.203 2.969
8.901 16.958 4.588 .265
1.029 1.617 .449
76.976 177.900 46.892
strong positive relation between employment and social assistance received. In contrast, for the variable FAMILY_ASSISTANCE (Wald = 5.305; p = 0.021) the OR equals 0.539, indicating a negative relation between employment and family assistance. This reflects the greater level of autonomy that employment generates in disabled women. Finally, the relation between RESIDENCE and EMPLOYED is weak (Wald = 1.065; p = 0.302). In addition, the OR equals 0.620, which means that women living in rural areas are more likely to be employed, while those living in urban areas are more likely to be unemployed (OR = 1.613). 4. Discussion From a constructivist perspective, social factors are critical for understanding the problems of disabled women. Incorporation into the labour market is fundamental for an effective social integration of this group. Thus the current study offers a preliminary analysis of how social factors, such as rurality, the social and family assistance received, and access to information, influence this phenomenon. The logistic regression models estimated show that the variable measuring residence in a rural area has a strong effect on these women’s activity status, with the disabled women living in urban areas having almost three times more probability of being active than those living in rural areas. Disabled women living in rural areas are excluded from activity, socially somewhat cut off from the labour market and shut away in their family setting. This is also reflected in the greater level of family assistance that disabled women receive in these areas. Nevertheless, rurality has a much weaker influence on employment. In this case, the variable does not have a significant coefficient, and moreover, it has an odds ratio of less than 1. Thus disabled women have a greater probability of being employed in rural areas, or in other words, a greater probability of being unemployed in urban municipalities. This apparent paradox is the result of the small number of unemployed women in rural areas. Consistent with what has been said earlier, the disabled women who are not employed tend to be inactive to a greater extent in rural areas than in urban areas. Given the particular characteristic of this group of people, this work analyses the influence of family and social assistance on their working life. In this case, the impact is stronger on employment status than on activity status, where the regression coefficients are non-significant. The results show that a greater level of social assistance received is associated with a lower probability of being active, which reflects the social support for disabled women outside the labour market. On the other hand, a greater level of family assistance is associated with an increase in the probability of being active, which reflects the importance of a supportive family environment for the incorporation of disabled women into the labour market. The two coefficients are not significant, however, so these two aspects should be analysed at greater depth in future work to produce conclusive results. In contrast, in the case of the employment status the influence of the assistance is significant. The results show that family assistance has an odds ratio of less than 1, so the disabled women in employment show lower values in this variable, which reflects the independence that their labour status produces. Social assistance, meanwhile, has an odds
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ratio greater than 2, which indicates a strong positive association between employment status and the social assistance that this group of people receives. As expected, these women’s working life is not independent of the type of disability involved. The results show that the mentally disabled women surveyed are less likely to be active, and when they are active, they are also much less likely to be employed. Inclusion in the labour market appears to be much easier for the physically disabled women, who are almost 40% more likely to be active and almost nine times more likely to be employed. But it is the women with sensory disabilities who show the highest odds ratios. This reflects the relative success in their inclusion in the labour market, as a result of the efforts of the public authorities and some private organisations. The severity of the disability seems to affect only the activity status: the group of women suffering the highest level of disability is 50% less likely to be active. In contrast, its effect on the employment status is not significant. The odds ratio here also indicates a lower probability of being employed among the women with the most severe disabilities, although this result from the sample analysed here can be extrapolated only with caution. With regard to the level of information about the labour market available, this variable has a significant relation with both activity and employment status. As the amount of information received by the women surveyed increases, their probability of being active increases by almost 40%, and their probability of being employed increases by almost 90%. In rural areas, the population centres are smaller and more dispersed, and the transport and communication infrastructures are less welldeveloped, so disabled woman have less access to information. This increases their labour discrimination relative to disabled women living in urban areas. Thus on top of the double labour discrimination that disabled women suffer on account of their gender and their disability, it seems that a third discrimination must be added if the women live in rural areas. Rural communities are more traditional and accord the family a greater social importance, and the disabled enjoy increased protection in them. This fact is in itself positive, but it also tends to limit their degree of autonomy and their inclusion in the labour market to a greater extent than for disabled women living in urban areas. 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