Despite the international commitment to guarantee the rights of disabled people, including the rights at the workplace, evidence shows that legislations are faced with different barriers to achieving their expected inclusion goals. Even more, the literature reported some counter-effects to the implementation of international and national legislations. Diversity studies have argued that the successful implementation of organizational support strategies is more guaranteed when barriers are well understood. This chapter examines the perceptions of employers and individuals with disabilities, including those with mental disabilities, of the barriers that inhibit diversity management at the workplace. The authors suggest extending the diversity literature by examining other organizational factors that facilitate the employment and sustainability of disabled individuals.
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The three main theme that underpin this chapter disability and mental disorder. In the extant literature, there are several definitions for disability and mental disorder, as both terms continued to evolve. For conceptual clarity, a definition is required. The term disability refers to the “activity limitations and/or participation restrictions in an individual with a health condition, disorder, or disease.” Furthermore, Bara (2015) stated that disability is a social condition and not just a medical condition referring to the limited opportunities to equal opportunities in the society and highlighting the needs of adequate policies and legislations to enforce the inclusion of the disabled individuals in the society.
Many definitions of mental disorder exist. In this chapter, we adopted the definition of mental disorder as conceptualized in DSM IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) as a:
…clinically significant behavioral or psychological pattern that occurs in an individual and that is associated with present distress (a painful symptom) or disability (impairment in one or more important areas of functioning) or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom.
Mental disorder is a dynamic construct that needs ongoing research from different disciplines in.
We noticed that the previous research studied interestingly the relationships between the individuals with disabilities, including the invisible disabilities of mental disorder, and the health caregivers or the advocates with fewer studies targeting the invisible inequalities against marginalized groups in an occupational setting (Härtel, Krzeminska, & Carrero, 2019). Yet, despite the international effort to secure equal rights and opportunities, there is a lot to be done concerning the employment equalities of individuals with mental disorders in national labor markets (Baumberg, 2015). Reassuringly, majority of the European countries committed to the improvement of their policies and legislations in a way that guarantee the rights of persons with disabilities as recognized by the United Nations convention (UNCRPD, 2006). The UN convention ensures the equal rights of employment for disabled individuals and prohibits any discriminatory actions against them. Besides the commitment to the UN convention, many European countries developed anti-discrimination legislations such as the Equality Act in the United Kingdom, and the Social Code IV in Germany. Besides the above, several European countries adopted the quota system to decrease the unemployment rate of disabled people.