Disability discrimination

Helen Henderson's article in Saturday's Star, "Why the gap between ability, job quality?" highlighted "society's inability to evaluate correctly the talents of people who move or process information differently from the decreed norm."

According to the article:

In 1998, the Canadian Council on Social Development found that 51.8 per cent of men and 41.1 per cent of women with disabilities with post-secondary degrees were employed compared with 82 per cent and 73 per cent of their respective able-bodied counterparts.

Three years later, a Statistics Canada survey showed only 51 per cent of people with disabilities aged 25 to 54 were employed compared with 82 per cent of their able-bodied peers.

Among those aged 55 to 64, 27 per cent of people with disabilities were employed compared with 56 per cent without disabilities, StatsCan said. For youth with disabilities aged 15 to 24, 47 per cent had jobs compared with 57 per cent of those without disabilities.

The mind boggles.

To learn more about what's being done to change these statistics, visit the Canadian Association of Professionals with Disabilities website.

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