Meaningful work for people with intellectual disabilities

Despite decades of reforms and targeted initiatives, people with intellectual disabilities continue to experience barriers to securing and sustaining employment, particularly in the open labour market. In Australia, only 32% of people with intellectual disabilities in working age were employed in 2018, significantly below the rate for the general population (80%), and for the wider population of people with disabilities (48%). 

Debates surrounding employment for people with intellectual disabilities are often focused on the question of whether 'non-mainstream' employment is a suitable alternative to 'mainstream' work. While this binary has structured much of the conversation about what constitutes appropriate employment, it has also constrained thinking about what makes work valuable to people with intellectual disabilities themselves. 

This report focuses on the concept of meaningful employment as an alternative approach. Meaningful employment shifts attention away from the formal characteristics of a workplace as either mainstream or non-mainstream, instead asking how individuals can find and sustain work that provides benefits that they personally value.

Participants’ strong desire to work and contribute meaningfully is a powerful reminder of the value they place on employment, and of the untapped potential that remains overlooked in current systems. Participants sought social connection, a sense of purpose and recognition, and fair pay. Because of their exclusion in the workforce, some people were forced to make unfair compromises, for example to give up on fair pay, so that they can experience other benefits of employment such as a sense of purpose and social connections.