#BTColumn – Make Room for the Differently-Abled

Much has been said about the differently-able participating in entrepreneurial activity. The pros and cons have been researched and analysed for some time, on the contribution that persons with disabilities can make to business development. 

Policy intervention and relevant programming are proposed as steps in the right direction to ensure an inclusive society. However, a conversation with associations and interest groups representing those with disabilities indicates this is not enough. An ecosystem of support may be needed to ensure an inclusive environment is achieved and that those with varying abilities can engage in entrepreneurship. 

Research by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) indicates that in the Caribbean, there are approximately 1.3 million persons with a disability of some kind and around 250 000 persons with a significant disability. The number and proportion of people with disabilities is expected to increase over the coming decades, primarily due to population ageing. The prevalence of disability could increase by 30 per cent to 40 per cent by 2050. However, a UNESCO (2021) report indicates that only 10 per cent of persons with disabilities in the Caribbean are employed.

Promoting entrepreneurship constitutes an important part of the Lisbon agenda and the Europe 2020 strategy which treats entrepreneurship as a key component of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

Using the term entrepreneurship in its broadest sense of self-employment and business ownership, entrepreneurship can be a catalyst for persons living with disabilities.

Arnold and Seekins (2002) argued that self-employment can be used as a potential rehabilitation vocational tool to achieve faster and better integration into the labour market of individuals who become disabled.

Scholars emphasise either the influence of ‘pull’ factors such as independence/ autonomy and material benefits or ‘push’ factors such as unemployment or employer discrimination – although individual choices to become self-employed are necessarily influenced by the wider socio-economic context.

Self-employment might arguably provide the flexibility in work tasks, pacing, hours, and location sought by disabled people and a better adjustment between disability status and working life.

An OECD report (2014) proffered that disabled people are likely to face general and specific barriers to entering and sustaining entrepreneurship. The general barriers refer to issues of impairment rates, earning potential, and health issues, etc, while specific barriers refer to those areas of the business environment that enabling policy responses can easily address. The report opined that some of these barriers are, arguably, very deep-rooted social-structural constraints imposing severe limits on life chances for certain groups of disabled people.

Some of the specific areas that require enabling policy responses are as follows:

Access to start-up capital. Disabled people often experience difficulties financing new start-ups due to limited personal financial resources (savings, home ownership), which, in turn, are partly due to poor education, lower employment rates and the concentration of disabled employees in low-paid occupations; poor credit rating after long-term benefit

receipt; disinterest/discrimination on the part of banks; lack of accessible information on sources of grants and loans.

Absence of appropriate and sensitive business support /unhelpful attitudes of business advisers. Advisers are often reluctant to recommend self-employment as a career option for disabled people and sometimes actively attempt to dissuade them.

Adequate infrastructural & technological support. The built environment plays an enabling role or deterrent to entrepreneurship. A 2018 study in the UK indicated that two-thirds of employers cited the increased cost of making adjustments to their establishments as

reasons for not hiring disabled persons. The cost of equipment for the hearing impaired and the blind to enhance their communication is still too prohibitive. 

Education of potential business owners and stakeholders must become a way of life and be intentional on the part of the Government, civil society and the private sector. 

Some behaviours may need to be reviewed and revised to facilitate the cultural change needed. 

Three of the most common areas for consideration include:

Lack of relevant business knowledge and skills. Disabled people often lack specialist business management, legal and financial expertise due to limited relevant education and employment experience and might feel at a disadvantage. Again, lack of managerial expertise might reflect the concentration of disabled employees at the lower end of organisational job hierarchies.

Lack of confidence/limited aspirations. This refers to individual beliefs related to identifying a business opportunity as a potential source of sustainable income, to be able to develop the business to achieve this goal or the stigma associated with business failure. Aspiring disabled entrepreneurs often lack the self-belief that they can start and operate businesses successfully, particularly among those with mental health issues (EMDA 2009). Both informal (family and friends) and formal sources of business support providers might act in ways that undermine would-be entrepreneurs’ self-confidence and discourage start up.

Lack of consumer support & discrimination. This can deter self-employment by reducing the demand for goods and services produced by disabled business owners, and reduces the rewards of entrepreneurship.

Our ability, therefore, to see entrepreneurship as a catalyst, to create an enabling framework and to educate our citizens to produce the change we seek, will assist in facilitating entrepreneurship as a viable option for the differently-abled. In the words of Robert Hensel, “there is no greater disability in society than the inability to see a person as more”.

The Small Business Association of Barbados (SBA) is the island’s non-profit representative body for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Connect with the SBA: https://www.sba.bb/sba/