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The Effect of Employment on the Quality of Life of People with Intellectual Disabilities: A Review of the Literature

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Enhancing the Quality of Life of People with Intellectual Disabilities

Part of the book series: Social Indicators Research Series ((SINS,volume 41))

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Abstract

This chapter reviews the literature in relation to the effect that employment and method of employment has on the quality of life of people with intellectual disabilities. The chapter first summarizes the literature on whether employment affects the quality of life of people with intellectual disabilities, and then reports those papers that investigate whether differences exist in the quality of life of people with intellectual disabilities employed in sheltered employment compared with open employment. The chapter concludes with a call for more research in the area, specifically highlighting gaps in our current knowledge and identifying areas worthy of future research on this matter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Sheltered employment refers to the situation where people with intellectual disabilities work alongside other people with a disability in a segregated, specially tailored setting. Typically, in this setting, the only people without disabilities in the workplace with whom people with intellectual disabilities would interact would be their supervisors.

  2. 2.

    Open employment is where people with intellectual disabilities work alongside people without disabilities in integrated, meaningful employment in a community setting, supported by their employment agency. The alternative terms of competitive employment or supported employment are also often used.

  3. 3.

    The discussion of Kober and Eggleton (2005) is based on the discussion from Kober and Eggleton(2006). I am grateful to Springer for granting permission to incorporate this discussion into this chapter.

  4. 4.

    Functional work ability was measured by the Functional Assessment Inventory (FAI) (Crewe & Athelstan, 1984). The FAI consists of 30 behaviourally anchored rating items, ranging from 0 (no significant impairment) to 3 (severe impairment), which assess a person’s work capabilities and deficiencies, thus giving a theoretical range of 0–90; the higher the score, the lower the person’s functional work ability. Low functional work ability was defined as a score of equal to or greater than 26, with high functional work ability defined as a score of 20 or less. These cut-off scores were selected as they represented approximately the top and bottom 40% of the sample, respectively.

  5. 5.

    For an explanation of homeostasis and homeostatic theory of subjective well-being, see Cummins (1995, 1998, 2000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Accounting and Finance, Monash University, Caulfield East, VIC, 3145, Australia

    Ralph Kober

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  1. Ralph Kober
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Correspondence to Ralph Kober .

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  1. , Department of Accounting and Finance, Monash University, PO Box 197, Caulfield East, 3145, Victoria, Australia

    Ralph Kober

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Kober, R. (2010). The Effect of Employment on the Quality of Life of People with Intellectual Disabilities: A Review of the Literature. In: Kober, R. (eds) Enhancing the Quality of Life of People with Intellectual Disabilities. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9650-0_7

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