EMPOWER THE ABILITY: WHAT DRIVES PERSONS WITH FUNCTIONAL DIFFICULTIES INTO WORK IN SRI LANKA?

Abstract

Disability which is defined as Functional Difficulties (FD) in physical or mental health is one of the major disadvantageous situations of people’s lives. It limits their ability to effectively involve themselves in day to day life roles, enter the labour market and also reduces the quality of their lives. Generally, persons without FD enjoy a better chance in labour market participation than those with such difficulties. This creates inequality and poverty among the people with FD by creating a huge barrier against the development goals of the country as well. The main objective of this study is to identify the key drivers of employment choice of persons with FD in Sri Lanka. The Binary Logistic Regression Model was used for econometric modelling by using a sample of 10,470 persons with FD from the Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey in 2018. This study identified that being married, being male, their per capita income, suffering from only hearing difficulty, only walking difficulty, only remembering difficulty, only communication difficulty, only self-care difficulty, only vision difficulty and dual difficulty as the significant and positively affecting factors; while age, being Sri Lankan Tamil, being Moor and other ethnicities, being in urban sector and years of education as significantly negatively affecting factors for employment probability among persons with FD. According to the study, occupation, education, self-employment and workplace related policies are proposed for empowering the ability of those with FD.