Job search and inclusion cognitive disabled people in Chile: a look from their mothers.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to stress out the the social factors that chilean young people with cognitive disability  have to face in the process being inserted in a job. It intents  to figure out, from the mothers’ point of view, the aspects that constitutes a barrier for their children to be employed. This survey has been conducted from a multidisciplinary setting and a qualitative design, using interviews and a semi structured survey. As main outcomes, we have indentified three kinds of barriers: social, personal and domestic/family. At a social level, mothers point out the lack of interest from private corporations, the prevalence of stereotypes and the common belief that disabled people are less productive. At the domestic/family level, most parents are reluctant to agree with the labor integration process, mainly because they think that their children might be abused or deceived by the employers and their teamwork. Therefore, they are extremely cautious when selecting job opportunities. As a personal level, mothers found statements associated to low self-esteem, unsteadiness, lack of autonomy and communicative disabilities.