Working life for middle-aged people with intellectual disabilities: knowing their rights?

Abstract

Within disability research, studies have generally focused on either young adults or older people with intellectual disabilities. The in-between age group (adulthood and middle age) has rarely been of interest. The purpose of this article is to describe and discuss middle-aged adulthood in relation to work, as experienced by people with intellectual disabilities in Sweden in 2010. The methodology is empirically grounded in semi-structured, qualitative interviews with seven men and six women in long-term receipt of disability services. The findings show that work was the hub around which participants’ lives were organised and given meaning. However, the work situation can be seen as paradoxical. Even though Swedish disability policy gives people with disabilities extensive legal rights, those who might benefit are not always aware of policies, nor do they always make claims on that support. For middle-aged people with disabilities, marginalisation influences the opportunities to share and talk about experiences of life events, and to formulate lifestyle plans. As the capacity for a person to claim entitlement or make plans is dependent on social interaction and available interpretative frameworks, the challenge for service providers and others involved in the daily lives of people with intellectual disabilities is to encourage capacity-building to enable such choices and claims of rights to be exercised.