Post‐School Destination—A Study of Women and Men With Intellectual Disability and the Gender‐Segregated Swedish Labor Market

Abstract

Knowledge about people with intellectual disability (ID) and their connections to the labor market is scarce. The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the entry into and representation in the Swedish labor market for people with ID, discussed with a special focus on the gender perspective. This study included 2,745 individuals (30% women and 70% men) who graduated from Swedish upper secondary schools for pupils with intellectual disability (USSID) in the 2000s, and who were defined as employees in 2011. Graduation data from 2001 to 2011 were analyzed in relation to employment data from 2011 and adjusted for gender, graduation year, and educational program. Results show that men who attended a national USSID program and graduated between 2001 and 2006 were the most likely group to have a job. The authors conclude that the gender differences in the Swedish labor market are more clearly pronounced among women and men with ID in relation to employment rate, wage levels, and professions than in the general population. Education, welfare‐services, and interventions specifically targeted to meet the needs of people with ID have to develop in more gender‐sensitive ways.

The Effectiveness of Rehabilitation Interventions on the Employment and Functioning of People with Intellectual Disabilities: A Systematic Review

“…The proportion of men and women differed in the studies. In the quantitative studies, the proportion of women varied from 29% [50] to 58% [47]. In one qualitative study [56] all the participants were men and in another qualitative study [54] all the participants were women.…”

“…During secondary education (Upper Secondary School for Pupils with ID) (ICF code d825), the students participated in different educational programs such as national programs, specially designed programs, vocational training and training activities or graduated with inadequate grades [50]. National programs focused on different parts of the labor market, for example, vehicles and transportation, hotels and restaurants, or social and healthcare.…”

“…The RCT study [43] was considered to be of high methodological quality, with scores of 11 out of 22, and the CCT study of Kilsby and Beyer [44] was of low methodological quality, with scores of 9 out of 22 according to van Tulder et al [32]. The methodological quality of four cohort studies [47, 49, 50, 52] out of six were high, with the maximum of nine ‘stars’ according to Wells et al [36]. Four cohort studies [45, 46, 48, 51] and one multimethod study [59] were considered to be of intermediate quality.…”

“…The quantitative studies also showed that both secondary and postsecondary education, including support services and work training, increased the transition of people with ID from school to the open labor market. The result was based on two high-quality cohort studies [50, 52] and three moderate-quality cohort studies [46, 48, 51] with 2,07,484 participants altogether.…”

Sysselsättning för unga vuxna med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning – boendegeografiska skillnader

“…2015). Vidare framkommer att en högre andel män än kvinnor hade förvärvsarbete, att männen har högre genomsnittslön än kvinnorna och både kvinnor och män är anställda i traditionellt könskodade yrkeskategorier, så som vård-och omsorgspersonal respektive byggnadsarbetare (Arvidsson, Widén, Staland-Nyman och Tideman 2016). …”