Not all types of work are desirable. It is important to distinguish between decent work and work that exploits and perpetuates poverty and lack of dignity. Decent work is work that dignifies and does not demean. The International Labour Organization (ILO) describes decent work as follows:

“Decent work sums up the aspirations of people in their working lives. It involves opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men.”

Scarcity of work may mean that many people are not in a position to choose how they earn a living, and accept working conditions that are far from decent.

The formal economy is regulated by the government and includes employment in the public and private sectors, where workers are hired on contracts with a salary and receive benefits such as pension schemes and health insurance.

The informal economy is the unregulated sector of a country’s economy. It includes small-scale agriculture, petty traders, home-based enterprises, small businesses employing a few workers and a multitude of similar activities.

In many countries, the informal economy employs the majority of the workforce and offers many more work opportunities for people with disabilities than the formal economy. However, anti-discrimination legislation generally does not apply to the informal economy. For this reason, finding work in the informal economy is not an automatic right, but requires the combined efforts of people with disabilities and those who work with them, using the strategies outlined in this module.

“Reasonable accommodation” means adapting the job and the workplace to facilitate employment of people with disabilities. It may include adjusting and modifying machinery and equipment, job content, working time, and work organization.

Many people with disabilities do not require any accommodation at all. For those who do, the accommodation may be simple and inexpensive, such as putting in a ramp, raising a chair, extending the training period, or adjusting working hours.

Other types of job modifications can be more expensive, such as purchasing screen-reading software for people with vision impairments.

Lack of environmental accessibility is a major barrier for people with disabilities in all countries. Inaccessible public transport, workplaces and communications mean that it may be impossible for people with disabilities to get to work and do their job.

Frequently, people with disabilities are channelled into stereotypical occupations, for instance people with vision impairments being taught to make baskets, or those with hearing impairments being taught carpentry, whether they want to work in these trades or not.

But people with disabilities have diverse interests, talents and desires, with as much right to choose what work they do as anyone else. These choices will depend on the context in which they live and, to some extent, also on the degree and type of their impairment. Opportunities may vary greatly depending whether a person lives in a rural area, village, town or city, and whether the formal or informal economy is more dominant

The continuum of human settlements ranges from large cities at one end to small, remote villages at the other.

“Urban” refers to towns or cities and their periurban areas and “rural” refers to villages, usually small and mainly dependent on agricultural activities.

Opportunities for earning an income are very different in rural and urban areas. In urban areas, there may be a larger range of types of employment, in both the formal and informal economies. In rural areas, where the economy is often based on small-scale agriculture, there are fewer employment options.

The exclusion of people with disabilities from work imposes a financial burden on the family, the community and other individuals or organizations that provide support and care, including major costs to social welfare and social security systems.

Exclusion from work represents the loss of a significant amount of productivity and income and therefore investment to offset exclusion is required.

Education and the acquisition of skills should not be something that happens only in childhood. For both children and adults with disabilities, continuing education and upgrading of skills is important in order to create, sustain and develop livelihood opportunities.

The need is for education for life and education throughout life, a concept that is now referred to as lifelong learning. Lifelong learning, especially non-formal and informal learning opportunities in different contexts, is just as important to people with disabilities who are trying to earn a living as are formal training courses.

Training courses need to be seen as contributors to the lifelong learning process and not as one-off, stand-alone events..

Adult literacy is a vital tool for development. Literacy training can be used to teach people not only to read and write, but also to reflect on and analyse their own situation and context.

In all communities, the process of group formation can play a very important role in enabling people with and without disabilities to create a culture of continuous learning.

Disability is not just an individual issue; it affects the entire family and community as well.

A family member with a disability can make a contribution to family life and livelihood; therefore, activities to support livelihoods must take the whole family into account.