Date of Award
2024
Degree Name
Master of Arts (Research)
Schools and Centres
Arts & Sciences
First Supervisor
Dr Catherine Thill
Second Supervisor
Dr Louise St Guillaume
Abstract
Despite continued growth in the number of people with disability completing university studies in Australia, this has not been reflected with an increase in employment participation post-graduation. In comparison with non-disabled graduates, university graduates with disability have lower rates of employment participation and higher levels of underemployment. This research explores the reasons for this disadvantage from the perspective of the university graduates with disability, using a qualitative methodological approach to gain new insights and to prioritise their voice, their lived experience, and their expertise. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with university graduates with disability who had graduated from 2009 onwards. The findings were analysed using a combination of the following frameworks: ableism, a human rights approach, the social model of disability and the universal model of disability and equality. This research found that many participants experienced attitudinal, internalised, and structural barriers to participation in employment and argues that these barriers persist due to everyday ableism reinforced in the neoliberal workplace. Ableist representations of disability as a deficit and negative experience, overshadowed participants’ academic achievements and manifested as negative attitudes of colleagues and employers, preventing equitable participation. Some participants showed the effects of internalising ableism with increased levels of anxiety, stress, and worry. Many research participants attempted to emulate ableist normative expectations of an ideal worker through ‘passing’ as non-disabled or less disabled. For some graduates ‘passing’ resulted in internalised barriers to employment, preventing them from gaining meaningful employment and limiting their career aspirations. Ableist and segregationist planning resulted in graduates with physical impairments encountering structural barriers in the workplace. 6 Moreover, participants in this study reported limited access to reasonable adjustments, discrimination in interviews, difficulties when sharing information about impairments and non-inclusive recruitment processes. This research argues that the persistence of these structural barriers is due to a minority-rights approach to equality in employment, which is reinforced in Article 27 of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Participants were forced to ‘other’ themselves in the workplace to participate on an equal basis, which put them in a precarious position in terms of potential discrimination, and future career progression. Further, this process simultaneously reinforced disability as an individual problem and an exception to the norm. This research shows that equal participation in employment is prevented because of the persistence of disability being framed as distinctive from the norm, as a deficit, and as an individual problem. This research argues that a universal model approach to disability and equality in employment is needed to reframe disability from an individual and deficit perspective to a valued part of human diversity and to facilitate a more inclusive labour market. This research demonstrates that attitudinal, internalised, and structural barriers to participation in employment are not removed by the completion of university qualifications and that systemic change is required.
Publication Details
Nelson, V. (2024). The Myth of Post-Graduate Employment: How Ableism and a Minority-Rights Approach to Equality Creates Barriers to Employment for University Graduates with Disability [Master of Arts (Research)]. The University of Notre Dame Australia. https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses/440