Disabled People Working in the Disability Sector: Occupational Segregation or Personal Fulfilment?

Abstract

Disabled people face many forms of exclusion on the labour market. To what extent is work in the disability sector a manifestation of this exclusion or a solution to it? Defined here as working for a disability organisation or specialising in disability in one’s occupation, work in the disability sector represents an under-documented aspect of the employment experiences of disabled people. This article uses it as a point of departure to theoretically and methodologically operationalise Carol Thomas’s social relational approach of disability to the study of employment. Drawing on biographical interviews conducted in France with people with either mobility or visual impairments, this study shows the ambivalent nature of work in the disability sector, which is diversely experienced as a form of occupational segregation or a means of self-fulfilment.