- Title
- (Under)valuing lived experience in the disability workforce: a snapshot of Australian job recruitment
- Creator
- Davies, Kate; Butler, Katie
- Relation
- Australian Journal of Social Issues Vol. 58, Issue 2, p. 425-440
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.238
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2023
- Description
- The Australian disability workforce has grown, and there is compelling evidence that peer work has a number of valuable impacts. Despite these apparent opportunities, there continue to be high levels of unemployment among people with disability and failure to draw on the assets of people with disability in Australian workplaces. To understand these ostensible missed opportunities, this study examined the ways in which lived experience was described as an asset in disability workforce recruitment. Advertisements for positions in New South Wales, Australia, that referred to lived experience or peer work and disability were collected over a 3-month period. Through a process of content analysis, we found that there were more employment opportunities for people with lived experience of mental illness than for other types of disability. Community engagement was a key function, and peer workers were described as complementary to professionals. Recruitment processes for lived experience jobs were not necessarily accessible. We recommend systemic reforms to facilitate recognition of lived experience as a valuable criterion for disability sector employment and to harness the benefits of a disability peer workforce.
- Subject
- disability; disability workforce; employment; lived experience; peer work; SDG 1; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1493508
- Identifier
- uon:53561
- Identifier
- ISSN:0157-6321
- Rights
- © 2022 The Authors. Australian Journal of Social Issues published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australian Social Policy Association. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
- Reviewed
- Hits: 2332
- Visitors: 2369
- Downloads: 52
Collections
Goal 1: No Poverty
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Publisher version (open access) | 251 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |