As people with disabilities often face difficulties entering the labour market, entrepreneurship and self-employment are often regarded as an opportunity to gain employment and earn a living. This article presents a scoping review that aims to investigate what establishment motives previous studies have identified for self-employment and entrepreneurship among people with disabilities. Four themes emerged: economic motives; flexibility and self-determination; avoiding discrimination; and personal development and being able to contribute something. In the article we discuss the results and relate them to the general discourse on entrepreneurship, which often includes the concept of autonomy. We argue that the findings suggest implications for how to develop support and strategies for this group, to help them avoid ending up in an even more vulnerable position. In this work, the individual’s own motives for establishment are of great value.

Entrepreneurs with disabilities in Sweden – a “forgotten” group at the intersection between the work principle and disability policy

Disability policy in Sweden is formulated in terms of individual rights and has shifted from a patient perspective to an increased emphasis on guarantees of participation, equal conditions, and active citizenship. At the same time, implementation of the rules connected to the work principle within Swedish social policy has diminished the possibilities for people with disabilities to qualify for sickness and disability benefits. The purpose of this article is to reach a deeper understanding of how the conditions of self-employed people with disabilities and reduced ability to work have been affected through such system changes. The study has been guided by one overall question: Has the work principle, in the way it has been interpreted and applied, enhanced the possibilities for entrepreneurship, or have the consequences been the opposite? The study takes its point of departure in potential conflicts of political objectives concerning the possibilities of people with disabilities and reduced ability to work to set up and engage in their own businesses. The analysis is based on public reports and written policies concerning sickness benefits and disability benefits as well as statistics on entrepreneurs with support from the Swedish Employment Service and disability benefits during two follow-up years, 2007 and 2017. One central conclusion is that the changed application of the work principle, especially in connection to the reforms of the disability benefits in Sweden in 2008, has had negative effects for people with disabilities and reduced ability to work and their possibilities to start up new businesses between our follow-up years, 2007 and 2017.

Little is known about self-employment among people with disabilities in Sweden. The present article contributes knowledge about barriers and opportunities experienced by self-employed people with disabilities and discusses how these affect the labor market inclusion of people with disabilities.

The article draws on qualitative, in-depth interviews with 10 self-employed participants with disabilities and one group interview with six participants who were self-employed and had visual impairments.

The analysis shows that the participants see self-employment as an opportunity for a more flexible working life. However, the economic redistribution on which they often depend to run their business is conditioned in a way that does not take into consideration their everyday life. Consequently, despite political goals of inclusion and social justice, people with disabilities come to be excluded from yet another arena, that is, self-employment.

Trots att arbetsmarknaden ska vara inkluderande och tillgänglig visar siffror från Arbetsförmedlingen att arbetslösheten bland personer med funktionsnedsättning är hög. Personer med funktionsnedsättning är en mycket heterogen grupp. De har olika typer av psykiska/neuropsykiatriska, intellektuella och fysiska nedsättningar. Det kan även handlaom en nedsättning som är medfödd eller förvärvad senare i livet. Slutligen skiljer sig graden av nedsatt arbetsförmåga åt mellan olika personer. Sammantaget gör det att samhällets insatser för att skapa ett tillgängligt arbetsliv behöver kunna vara anpassade efter individuella behov.För att underlätta etablering på arbetsmarknaden för personer med funktionsnedsättning finns i dag flera strukturerade arbetssätt. En metod som varit framgångsrik och gett bättre resultat än andra är Supported Employment där kontinuerligt och personligt stöd ges till arbetsgivaren. Däremot saknas det i dag kunskap om metoden leder till varaktig etablering i arbetslivet och om de individuella effekterna. Ett centralt hinder för att lyckas i arbetet med att öka inkluderingen på arbetsmarknaden är en outvecklad och ineffektiv samverkan mellan olika centrala aktörer. Särskilt svårt är det när de inblandade aktörerna lyder under olika regelverk och har olika organisatoriska förutsättningar och roller.Mycket av forskningen fokuserar på individuella egenskaper. Forskningen måste bredda perspektivet och inkludera mer av organisatoriska och samhälleliga förutsättningar för ökad inkludering.

There are two different understandings of the concept of ”vulnerability” which have implications for how we perceive disability – either as universal and part of being human (Martha Fineman, 2008) in the sense that no matter what we all die or, as something only certain people, suffers from. As for example Leach Scully (2014) has pointed out, both perspectives have weaknesses when applied on persons with disabilities: A universal perspective risks to neglect factors that make certain groups of people more vulnerable than others. On the other hand, by focusing on certain groups as more vulnerable, two groups of people are produced and reproduced; vulnerable and less vulnerable persons. Bryan Turner (2006) offers yet another perspective where vulnerability does not depend on the individual’s body or disability, but rather is understood as an universal dependency on social institutions. As a teacher and a researcher in disability studies at the department of social work I have become aware of the need to reflect over how vulnerability is conceptualized and understood within the two disciplines. In this presentation I identify and reflect over the arguments for talking about vulnerability in disability studies and in social work as well as the arguments for choosing other concepts in order to achieve social change.

Invisible disabilities involve dilemmas that differentiate them from visible disabilities. However, little is known about the situation persons with invisible disabilities face at work, as empirical studies are scarce. The present article contributes in-depth knowledge of practices, experiences and understandings that affect the work situation for people with invisible disabilities in a Swedish context. The article draws on qualitative, in-depth interviews with 10 persons with invisible disabilities and seven persons who – in their professional work as employers, HR managers, medical doctors or psychologists in the occupational healthcare – regularly have dealings with persons with invisible disabilities. The analysis shows how practices, experiences and understandings regarding disclosure differ between the two groups of informants – differences that lead to dilemmas for the persons with invisible disabilities. These results indicate that persons with invisible disabilities are in a vulnerable position despite the fact that working life in Sweden is relatively well-regulated.

Background: Invisible impairments refer to impairments that are either invisible for others because they can ́t be visibly seen on the body or because the person is actively hiding it through various strategies (compare with Matthews & Harrington, 2000). By studying experiences and practices of disclosure earlier studies have illuminated how invisible impairments involves specific dilemmas compared to impairments that are visible (Charmaz, 2010, Davis & Mandelson, 2014, Lingsom, 2008, Santuzzi, Waltz, Finkelstein, Rupp, 2014). The focus of this paper is to present some of the factors that affect if, when, how and to whom persons disclose, or abstain from disclosing, their invisible impairments at work (Norstedt, 2016). Method: this paper is based on a study with a qualitative approach. 17 semi-structured interviews have been conducted with persons who: a) have invisible impairments and b) who in their professional role handle questions on disability, impairments, sickness and rehabilitation at different workplaces. Results: Earlier experiences, stigmatizing impairments, colleagues and employers’ treatment, the impairment ́s impact on the workability, the employer ́s understanding of his/her responsibility for rehabilitation, controlling mechanisms, employment situation and, view on future career are factors that influence decisions on disclosure. Despite reporting positive aspects of disclosure, the interviewees with invisible impairments, expressed an uncertainty whether they would disclose their impairment for a potential future employer. Conclusions: Even though Sweden’s comparatively strong laws concerning employers’ responsibility and the law against discrimination, persons with invisible impairments experience their situation as precarious and uncertain. This could be understood against their earlier experiences but also against norms on normality and adulthood (Priestley, 2003) and the work strategy (Junestav, 2004).

BACKGROUND: What a stroke means for working-age persons has not been sufficiently studied from a sociological perspective. OBJECTIVE: This article uses the empirical material of a larger study to describe and analyze how institutional practices and discourses influence attempts to return to work after a stroke. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten persons who have had a stroke and ten civil servants and professionals from the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Social Insurance Agency, and different health care institutions. The qualitative analysis was inspired by institutional ethnography. RESULTS: The analysis shows how persons who have had a stroke and civil servants and professionals in welfare organizations share the same goal: a return to working life for the former. The persons in this study related to, translated, and put into practice discourses of normality and employability in this process. However, there were, at times, conflicting institutional practices between the different organizations. CONCLUSIONS: Conflicting institutional practices connected to the discourses of normality and employability contribute to the difficulties that persons who have had a stroke face when trying to return to work after recovery.

Institutional ethnography (IE) is a method of social inquiry that sets out to explore and analyze how people's daily activities are "hooked up" into institutional arrangements and ruling relations. Using the everyday life of people and their experiences as points of departure, the overall goal is to trace how these experiences are linked to translocal processes. When engaged in empirical inquiries, most IE researchers achieve this goal by moving beyond everyday "levels" of experience into various institutional settings. This article illuminates and critically analyzes the possible pitfalls of moving between various sites of empirical investigation. The article uses comparisons of two studies conducted in similar research settings and both concerning rehabilitation processes to describe two possible ways of conducting this kind of research. The aim is to contribute to a discussion of methodological and ethical challenges in institutional ethnographies in order to enrich it as a method of inquiry.