People with mental disabilities in the process of employment: strategies, barriers and subjective meanings of participation

Full social integration, which is the main reason for the well-being of people with disabilities, is still in a precarious position and is an elusive goal for them. Organizations of people with disabilities around the world, international regulations and domestic government policies of most countries consider employment and participation in the labor market to be one of the most important ways to increase the level of participation of people with disabilities in society and improve their well-being. While the problems of employment of people with physical and sensory disabilities have achieved wider public recognition, people with mental disabilities have been and remain particularly excluded from society and all spheres of employment.

Since the 1960s, in most advanced economies, the processes of deinstitutionalization and restructuring of social security systems have led to improved social integration and increased participation of people with disabilities in society. However, this process has only recently reached people with mental disorders. People with mental disabilities have become more visible in Russia thanks to the activities of non-profit organizations and parent activists, and the problems of their independent life and employment have become more relevant for political decision makers.

The number of people with disabilities employed in various sectors of the economy is growing all over the world, including in Russia. In addition to moral and ethical arguments and human rights aspects, the positive impact of social integration on economic growth is also confirmed by studies that have shown that companies with an inclusive working environment for people with disabilities can significantly increase their income. However, people with mental disorders are still much less likely to be affected by inclusive measures in the labor market, while their employment problems remain the most acute and need careful study.

This project makes up for the lack of academic knowledge about the target group of inclusive politics. In order for inclusive practices to work effectively, they must correspond to the understanding, interpretation and meanings that the target group has. In this case, answers are needed to questions that remain mostly outside of academic attention: how do people with mental disabilities understand the meaning of inclusive practices offered by State and non-State actors? and what is the importance of their well-being in the labor market? Thus, our analysis focuses on the socially, institutionally and politically fixed perception and understanding of "work" and activities in the labor market by people with mental disabilities, as well as on the interaction between society and those who have the label of "mentally retarded" in the process of integration in the labor market. The successful integration of people with mental disabilities into society depends on knowledge about their understanding of opportunities at work, their motivation for activities in the labor market and their perception of support from non-profit organizations and government agencies.

Moreover, mental disability as a social phenomenon is studied almost exclusively in the context of Western societies. We are changing the perspective of research to a non-Western, post-Soviet space and are promoting the expansion of a limited, Eurocentric view of the social integration of people with (mental) disabilities. In addition, interviews with respondents with mental disabilities pose a serious challenge to traditional fieldwork formats, interviewing methods and analytical and interpretive practices. Therefore, this project is also aimed at contributing to the sociological study of disability by revising interviewing methods, for example, through cooperation with public organizations, and methods of analyzing interview texts.

This project will be carried out on the principles of methodological triangulation and involves desk and field research. During the cabinet stage of work on the project, it is expected to analyze the objective conditions and regulatory framework that determine inclusive employment of people with disabilities, including mental, as well as on the materials of non-profit organizations reports, strategies and best practices for the employment of people with mental disabilities, including in an international cross-country perspective, will be determined. In the course of the field study, to determine the context, barriers and drivers, on the one hand, and strategies and subjective meanings of employment of people with mental disabilities, on the other, a series of semi-structured interviews will be conducted with people with mental disabilities themselves, their guardians, representatives of the non-profit sector and parent organizations, employers and public sector experts (in total, not less than 45 interviews). The research will be carried out on the principle of participation based on the post-traditional model of disability, and by involving the non-profit sector, parent communities and people with mental disabilities themselves and their guardians in discussing attitudes and dilemmas of inclusive employment.

The proposed research project brings together colleagues who have not yet worked together in such a composition, but all have experience in the broader field of studying the social integration of people with disabilities. Previous experience has shown the lack of research on the social integration of people with mental disabilities and related methodological problems that we are trying to solve in this project, developing our knowledge in this new direction.