Barriers to the employability of people with disabilities in the South African public service

African Journal of Disability

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Barriers to the employability of people with disabilities in the South African public service
 
Creator Charles, Warren P. Gie, Liiza Musakuro, Rhodrick N.
 
Subject — disability; barriers; employment; provincial government; labour market; public service.
Description Background: South African public sector efforts to employ people with disabilities (PWDs) in the post-apartheid have been less successful, resulting in a poor transformation record during the past 27 years (1994-2021) due to the failure to integrate PWDs into mainstream employment in government departments.Objective: The objective of this article is to identify and highlight some of the barriers to the employability of PWDs in the South African public service.Method: The research was framed as a case study within the transformative research paradigm. A typical department in the Western Cape provincial government was selected for the study. In-depth interviews were conducted with selected top managers within the Western Cape provincial government. Convenience sampling technique of the purposive sampling method was adopted to select targeted respondents (n = 10). Thematic analysis was employed to condense the data collected into a small number of significant themes. Atlas.ti version 7 was also used to enhance the analysis.Results: The study found, among others, that there are conceptual, infrastructural, managerial and organisational factors affecting the employability of PWDs in mainstream public service.Conclusion: The study concludes that barriers to the socio-economic progression of PWDs, including infrastructural and psychosocial factors, continue to prevail and cause the socio-economic marginalisation of PWDs.Contribution: The study contributes towards efforts aimed at the inclusion of PWDs in the workplace by offering both internal and society-wide actions. Internally, successful inclusion of PWDs involves eliminating barriers, removing bureaucracy, initiating management development for disability matters, introducing appropriate talent development measures, and implementing collaborative management of PWDs. External or society-wide measures include campaigns to demystify disability and change attitudes, engage society structures, and improve societal knowledge of disability.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Date 2023-07-17
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — qualitative research
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/ajod.v12i0.1178
 
Source African Journal of Disability; Vol 12 (2023); 13 pages 2226-7220 2223-9170
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/1178/2393 https://ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/1178/2394 https://ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/1178/2395 https://ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/1178/2396
 
Coverage South Africa; Western Cape, CBD — Age; Gender; Ethnicity
Rights Copyright (c) 2023 Warren P. Charles, Liiza Gie, Rhodrick N. Musakuro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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