Employment opportunities and Situations at work: the case Of visually impaired women in Addis ababa
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Date
2002-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The study was designed to assess the employment opportunities and working
situations of women with visual impairment. In conducting the study, a total of 167
subjects were taken. The subjects comprise four groups. The main target group is 58
employed and 50 unemployed women with visual impairment. The other three groups
were 55 staff-members/ 24 men and 31 female/, 3 managers and 1 representative of
policy makers. The study sites were 8 organizations/institutions in Addis Ababa.
Concerning sampling techniques, the sites were purposefully taken and employed and
unemployed women were drawn based on the availability sampling technique. The
staff-members and key persons-managers, a policy maker were taken purposefully.
Questionnaires, attitude scales interview and FGD were employed in order to
generate data. Depending upon the nature of the data collected, both quantitative
(i.e. percentage, chi-square) and qualitative methods were employed in the analysis of
the collected data.
The findings have shown that women with visual impairment are discriminated by
hiring institutions. As a result, they have less access to employment opportunities,
mainly due to the disability factor and gender. Hence, they are in double jeopardy.
The results also revealed that whether women with visual impairment are the
employed or unemployed is determined primarily by the awareness of the society. In
addition to this, the major cause of employment problem for them was found to be
less opportunity for education and training. Moreover, employers’ conditions,
cultural influence, lack of adequate material or moral support during school life, and
self-perception about oneself
are the other causes for low employment opportunity
of women with visual impairment.
ivIn addition to the discrimination, women with visual impairment face in getting job,
they are also discriminated in payment, promotion, transfer, and training. These
problems however, were found to be less serious compared to getting job.
Concerning the attitude of staff-members, except some, most of them have positive
attitude towards women with visual impairment. Though there was no clear pattern
as to the difference of attitudes between the men and women, women are more
positive towards visually impaired women than men staff-members.
Some recommendations were made based on the findings particularly in relation to
the active role the government and NGOs have to play. The study gives a direction on
priority areas of interventions such as incentives, job-reservation, introducing
appropriate new technologies, developing assertiveness in order to improve
situations of women with visual impairment
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Keywords
Addis ababa Situations at work