The reflection in this paper is different from what we might normally find in other intellectual academies. In the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, we can combine two elements: firstly, a vision of where we could go – a shared goal that we can hope to try to achieve in the long term (a horizon), which we can draw from the millennial traditions of the wisdom of the world, and specifically from Christianity, and, secondly, a serious consideration of the technical problems that need to be faced and proposals for possible steps forward, give where we are now, or a “pathway” towards where we could like to go.
The part of the paper regarding Catholic Social Teaching (CST) will provide the main source for thinking about where we could go, while the part regarding social enterprise will be the source for thinking about concrete steps forward from where we are now, in both cases focusing the discussion on the question of employing persons with disability.
We may begin the elaboration of the vision with a quote from Gaudium et spes, the Pastoral Constitution from the Second Vatican Council on the Church in the Modern World. This text is taken from the third chapter of part one, entitled “Human Activity Throughout the World”:
“Just as [human activity] proceeds from the human person, so it is ordered towards him or her. For when a person works they not only alter things and society, they develop themselves as well. They learn much, they cultivate their resources, they go outside of themselves and beyond themselves. Rightly understood, this kind of growth is of greater value than any external riches which can be garnered”, Gaudium et spes, n. 35.
We see here the core idea coming from the Christian social tradition as regards human activity in general, and work in particular. Such activity is for the human person; it is about human development, with the philosophical idea behind this that we are beings with potential that we realise (turn into reality) through activity. We learn, we cultivate our talents and resources, we go beyond ourselves (we become “more human” as the same document will also say in n. 38). This is the central issue about human activity, even if “altering things” is also important. It is what John Paul II will later call “the subjective dimension of work” in his encyclical on work, Laborem Exercens n. 6, contrasting it to the “objective” dimension, the products and services we produce. Every work process has both objective and subjective dimensions. We are used to recognizing the first – the production system, including its machinery and work procedures, as well as the product or service produced by a work process – but we often miss the second. This dimension gives work its meaning and sense, since we develop into the people we could truly be through work (indeed, only human beings work – machines function or operate, but they do not work, since the subjective dimension is constitutive of work and only human beings have it). Every work process, therefore, has two outputs: an objective and a subjective one. Our quote above indicates that a proper recognition of the subjective dimension of work, which is important for all human beings, will be a crucial part in making the breakthrough needed to involve persons with disabilities fully in the workplace. We might say that while barriers on the objective level of work can create extra problems for persons with disabilities, on the subjective level there is both less difference between those with and without disabilities, and the common challenge of finding ways to recognise the subjective dimension of work for us all.
John Paul II will also apply this distinction to the situation of work in the capitalist system by talking about the priority of labour over capital. Labour, he will say, always remains the “active” or “efficient” cause of work, while capital (machines and money) are only “material” causes. Furthermore, much of what constitutes the capital resources at our disposal are the results of human labour, so in this sense too, labour is prior to capital (the rest of our capital resources are a gift to us from the Creator – the natural resources at our disposal). In a later encyclical, Centesimus annus, John Paul II will add to this discussion, in n. 32, that a key capital resource for today’s economy is constituted by the knowledge and skills that workers themselves have developed, what is often now called “human capital”, linking labour and capital in an even more direct way. If labour does have priority over capital, this implies many things on a practical level. For instance, it implies that costs that protect workers from injury will be sustained, or that we should be developing technology to enhance human skill, not using human beings to support machines. Going further, we can recognise that it implies that costs to protect the employment of women (i.e. of human beings who have babies) should be sustained, and, finally, of human beings who have disabilities should also be sustained. Normal human beings have babies and have disabilities, just as they all need safe workplaces. If we are going to put the human being at the centre, then recognising that having children and having disabilities is part of the picture of being human, rather than as something strange or odd, is part of doing this.
We could not finish this section without mentioning solidarity, a key principle of CST. Through sharing our difficulties and working together to resolve them, that is, exercising solidarity, we can achieve goals that would otherwise be impossible for us. It was through their solidarity, for instance, that the trades union movement achieved the recognition of so many rights for working people. We might say that solidarity is the virtue, or social principle, behind the phrase so often mentioned by persons with disabilities: “nothing for us without us”.
Compared to the way we usually think about work in our current economic system, where the crucial consideration is what we produce and decisions are mostly driven by a search for financial return and the reduction of costs, this is a kind of “upside down” way of looking at things. For the “normal” way of thinking prioritises what we just called the objective dimension of work, which fits into the search for profit and the reduction of costs. And yet, when we look at things like this, the “normal” starts to become “strange”, and this “upside down” way of looking at things begins to ring true and actually seem quite realistic. We know that we do not work just to create profit. Pope John Paul II talked about work as a “key” for understanding our social problems in general: “human work is a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question, if we try to see that question really from the point of view of man’s good. And if the solution – or rather the gradual solution – of the social question, which keeps coming up and becomes ever more complex, must be sought in the direction of ‘making life more human’, then the key, namely human work, acquires fundamental and decisive importance” (Laborem Exercens, n. 3). If this statement is really true, then “solving” the problems to do with work and employment regarding persons with disabilities could be the “key” to solving many other aspects of the problems regarding their full inclusion in society. We might also note that article 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), covering the right to work, deals in depth with this issue. It is one of the most detailed articles of the Convention.[1]
In some ways, the realism of thinking like this might seem to present dangers to our current economic order. For example, one of the “problems” we face today is that young people are not as driven by the goal of achieving economic gain as they were in the past. Many of them want to work part-time, in order to realise their other goals in life, causing a real shortfall in labour market supply in some parts of the world (Furnham, 2024). At the same time, in relation to our topic, this “realism” of young people may actually be exactly what we need, since, along with the ageing of societies, this development could lead businesses to take more seriously the opportunities provided by employing persons with disabilities, creating improved job prospects for them.[2]
We may summarise what we have said so far by saying that if putting human development at the centre of our thinking about work might seem utopian from an economic point of view, it does inspire us and the tension it sets up in our minds and hearts can create openings for improvement that we may not have thought achievable without the motivation that such tension can give us. We have already made comparisons between “persons who have babies” and “persons with disabilities”, and the story of the struggle of the first for greater recognition of their dignity and equality shows how this tension between the where we could be and where we are now can give us the strength and energy to bring about change for the better.[3] Things that seem impossible can become normal if they have a basis in reality.
In the light of what we have said more generally about work so far, here is the most specific statement in CST that applies this general idea of work to the situation of persons with disabilities:
“. . . it is to be hoped that a correct concept of labour in the subjective sense will produce a situation which will make it possible for disabled people to feel that they are not cut off from the working world or dependent upon society, but that they are full-scale subjects of work, useful, respected for their human dignity and called to contribute to the progress and welfare of their families and of the community according to their particular capacities”, Laborem Exercens, n. 22, italics original.
We see here the central importance given to persons with disabilities as “subjects of work”, reinforcing what we have said so far about the subjective dimension of work. Pope Francis speaks in a similar way about recognising persons with disabilities as active members of society:
“Many persons with disabilities ‘feel that they exist without belonging and without participating’. Much still prevents them from being fully enfranchised. Our concern should be not only to care for them but to ensure their ‘active participation in the civil and ecclesial community. That is a demanding and even tiring process, yet one that will gradually contribute to the formation of consciences capable of acknowledging each individual as a unique and unrepeatable person’”, Fratelli Tutti, n. 98.
So, where do we arrive with this? What is the vision that we can get from CST that we can then try to realise gradually, using examples from social enterprise to give us some idea of the next steps forward?
In one sentence, we may put it like this: the labour market, and the economic system more generally, needs to be focused on the human person. We need to change what we see as “normal”, so that the human person (and life as a whole) is put at the centre of our economic system. As we mentioned above, this may seem utopian or impossible to attain, but we also know that our current system has been at the root of many of the problems we face today, such as the climate crisis, causing us to adopt systems of work and wealth creation that are not focused on life or the human person. Many of us knew that these problems were emerging, but we did not know what else to do; the alternative seemed utopian and impossible to achieve.
The interrelated crises that we now face, as well as the vision we are talking about here, push us towards moving out of our current system and into a new one where the human person, as a part of an integrated life-support system, is at the centre, where human freedom, drawing on the quote we just saw from Gaudium et spes, is about human development, and so focussed more on “freedom for” than “freedom from”, and we can bring shared goals back into our way of life together. We are already doing this on a practical level with the SDGs.
This will also mean that our economic and work systems will need to take on meaning and purpose; we will be managing the subjective dimension of work as much as the objective. We will move away from the “technocracy” which Pope Francis ably denounced in his document, Laudate Deum (nn. 20-33).
In this context, it is no surprise that a recent OECD report on disability and work has said: “A real change will require shaking up the existing system”.[4]
This is a pretty tall order, and we are not going to get there quickly. So now we will turn to the situation of social enterprise, a form of business activity that is already trying to bring respect for the subjective dimension of work and social goals into its way of working by creating economic and social value in an integrated way; some of these are “faith-based organisations” (FBOs), which gives them the resources of religious faith to draw on as well.[5]
According Martin and Osberg (2007), the “social entrepreneur should be understood as someone who targets an unfortunate but stable equilibrium that causes the neglect, marginalization, or suffering of a segment of humanity; who brings to bear on this situation his or her inspiration, direct action, creativity, courage, and fortitude; and who aims for and ultimately affects the establishment of a new stable equilibrium that secures permanent benefit for the targeted group and society at large.” Data from the report “The State of Social Enterprise 2024” by the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship shows that, globally, there are around 10 million social enterprises.[6] They are creating $2 Trillion in annual revenue, plus the social value they create.[7] They have created 200 million jobs, while 50% of them are led by women. Furthermore, data from the US and the EU shows that the proportion of people who are self-employed, which could reveal an openness to entrepreneurship, is higher among persons with disabilities than among others.[8] Jacocks and Bell, using US data, highlight that, while almost all indicators point to lower levels of participation in work by persons with disabilities, “people with disabilities are twice as likely to be self-employed or launch their own businesses as the general population” (Jacocks and Bell, 2020, 117). We may also note that principle 17 of the EU Pillar on Social Rights explicitly “provides further impetus to the active social and labour market inclusion of persons with disabilities” (Lecerf 2020, 4), and that the EU’s strategy document “Union of Equality” sees social enterprise, understood as part of the broader “social economy”, as particularly important in achieving this goal.[9]
A useful way to frame how social enterprise could help us on the question of employing more persons with disabilities is to look at a couple of evaluations of the key problems that need to be addressed if we are going to make a breakthrough in this area.
Two interesting sources on this point are the website of the ILO Global Business Disability Network (GBDN) and the OECD report Disability, Work and Inclusion: Mainstreaming in All Policies and Practices (OECD, 2022).[10]
The first source, a network of about 30 multinational corporations, gives the following 4 points as key issues that need to be addressed:[11]
1. “Invalid opinions”, which create attitudinal barriers against the inclusion of persons with disabilities, including stigma, misconceptions, and stereotypes. Attitudinal barriers are particularly important to confront because they contribute to other kinds of environmental and institutional barrier.
2. Workplace adjustments
3. Digital accessibility
4. Neurodiversity
As regards the contribution that social enterprises can make in confronting these problems, we will focus on invalid opinions, given their importance, and also on creating workplaces that welcome neurodiversity, where it emerges that the question of recruitment is particularly important. On this point, the OECD report shows that persons without disability are 2.5 times more likely to be hired than someone with a disability, but then continues: “Once employed, however, the likelihood of a job-to-job change is relatively similar for people with disability and people without disability . . .” (p. 18), indicating that the critical and difficult moment is the initial recruitment into a workplace.
The OECD text, produced by an organisation of states and focused on mainstreaming the question of disability across policy areas, is more elaborate than the GBDN. It points out that there have been serious attempts to improve the participation of persons with disabilities in the labour market for at least 20 years with little or no success, and argues that two key factors are crucial in addressing this:
• mainstreaming and individualised targeting must go hand in hand
• Supply-side elements need more attention:
• young people have received too little attention
• persistent skill gaps need to be addressed
• earlier and faster interventions (see footnote 3, p. 16)
On this last point, the OECD report points out that when people experience some disabling event in their life, they usually first enter a situation of sick pay before transitioning to disability benefits. In these cases, “policy efforts must be reoriented to prevent people from getting to a stage from which there is no sustainable return to work.” (p. 23), because “[s]kills depreciate very fast and evidence shows that it is much easier for people to remain in employment building on the existing employer-employee relationship, than to find new employment” (p. 21).
In what follows, we will focus on four key issues raised here that can be addressed by social enterprises in a particularly effective way: invalid opinions, the inclusion of neurally-diverse people, confronting the situation of people who have not received early and fast interventions, and entrepreneurs with disabilities.[12] How can social enterprise help us deal with these issues? Here are some illustrative examples.
We know that the arts are a central way of communicating profound ideas and building a shared culture, so it is interesting to see that there are quite a number of social enterprises that focus on the sphere of the arts, not only generating employment for persons with disabilities but also acting to change those invalid opinions we have mentioned.[13] Some, like the Heart to Heart orchestra based in Seoul, Korea, are using a classical orchestral format and recruiting young people with disabilities, during which they continue training, have masterclasses and develop also in smaller ensembles. It is interesting that each of the young people involved is presented in a personal way on the orchestra’s website. They pride themselves on having played in some of the leading concert halls of the world, and on being as financially solvent as possible.[14]
Others, like Able orchestra, are more experimental. Able emerged out of a project to use iPads in creating music with school pupils in North Nottinghamshire, UK; gradually, a network of performers, experts in musical technology and the Hallé orchestra got involved in the project.[15]
BSO resound is a small disabled-led ensemble that developed out of a “changemakers” programme created by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. All of the musicians involved are adults; the conductor has cerebral palsy and conducts with a baton attached to his glasses. They have performed world premieres of pieces written for them by composers with disabilities.[16]
The main goal in all these cases is to show that persons with disabilities can be creative performers and to inspire others with the same idea, so dealing directly with the problem of invalid opinions.
Another type of performing arts social enterprise is “Epic Arts”, founded between the UK and Cambodia, using dance as its main art form. They have developed a suite of activities between which persons with disabilities can move: a café, community outreach, education, and the performing arts group. We can see here a kind of ecosystem approach, one that is dealing with both supply and demand sides of employment, with a special focus on young people.[17] Other social enterprises contribute to creating a supportive ecosystem by offering consultancy services to other businesses on workplace adjustments and inclusive hiring practices (Crosta & Sanders 2021, 10).
Art Enables is an example of a collective creating a space for the production of visual arts which can be sold by the artists.[18] The focus on this place of work is to help those who have been struggling for some time to find work, as well as a place to express themselves. Artists gain income from selling their work, although it does not usually provide a full income for them. However, the main issue is the way in which the people involved in the collective can grow and develop themselves, regaining confidence such that transitioning back into work becomes more possible.
In all these cases, persons with disabilities are creative performers and artists, paid for their work. In the first two cases there is a supply-side element, connected with the training of young people to develop the kinds of skills of which orchestras like these are in need. In the third case, we see a social enterprise that is creating pathways back into work for those who have dropped out of the labour market, which is, as the OECD report indicates, one of the most difficult groups to try to get back into work.
Turning to digital accessibility and the inclusion of neurally-diverse workers, tech-based social enterprises like the Ghanaian-based Tech Era aim to train disabled people in digital skills, sometimes providing them with assistive technology in order to do so.[19] Tech Era funds itself by teaching robotics in private schools and selling school management software. Forming an alliance with a Canadian social enterprise, another tech company, Dextra, and a lab at Ashesi university, it is encouraging others to produce assistive technologies by launching a makerspace in Ghana.
Flow, based in Taiwan, was started by a group that wanted to create a business with purpose and, after many iterations, decided to focus on two businesses that create jobs for two groups of persons with disabilities, one with less capacity for movement than the other.[20]
The AI Data Service Division, part of the AI department, develops a data processing platform for computer vision and trains people with disabilities at home to become AI data annotators. By providing a full range of integrated AI data processing services, with the labelers integrated into the system rather than being self-employed part-timers as often occurs, Flow can offer benefits to its customers, such as data insights alongside lower costs, that other providers would find difficult.
The Building Information Modeling (BIM) division offers full-time jobs for disabled people who are capable of more physical movement (i.e. who are able to walk or need less supporting equipment). About half of this division is disabled and primarily works as modeling engineers. As in the AI division, Flow can offer competitive advantages that stem from its organisation and experience. Overall, Flow has a low turnover rate, with around 200 of its 400 trained people on long-term contracts. Although training costs are high, these are compensated for by the savings made on recruitment expenses because of the low turnover rate.
Auticon, a social enterprise set-up between Germany and Canada, offers IT consulting services at competitive prices while employing neurally-diverse people.[21] The key idea for this company is that workers on the autistic spectrum can be extremely productive if they are in the right role, that is, if the “fit” between work and the kinds of things they are good at, such as precise attention to detail, ability to focus and drive to complete tasks, is there. Out of its 290 employees, Auticon has 210 who are neurally-diverse.
The management teams of Auticon have realised that knowing how to interview a person with this kind of disability is key.[22] According to Auticon’s founder, “the hiring process in general is quite broken. If you’re able to sell yourself, you can get a job, but it doesn’t mean you can do that job.” He notes that the average length of unemployment for persons with autism before being hired by Auticon is 22 months. A question like: “why should we employ you rather than any of the other candidates?” will floor a person with autism, because he or she does not know the other candidates and so cannot answer the question. Rephrasing the question to something like: “why do you think we should employ you?” produces an interesting answer. Furthermore, Auticon’s interview process includes the chance for the person to show how he or she actually performs, which is assessed over a period ranging from between six hours to two weeks, depending on the seniority of the candidate. Auticon’s founder maintains that if mainstream businesses started to hire in this way, they would not only make it more possible for neurally-diverse people to get into the labour market, but they would also make fewer mistakes in general when they hire people.
Among the social enterprises that we can mention here, perhaps the most interesting category of all are those where the founding entrepreneur is a person with a disability, not least because of the specific ways in which this allows them to work, as well as their special sensitivity to the needs of others: “Entrepreneurship offers people with disabilities attempting to overcome barriers and stereotypes the ability to self-define their role . . . Because of the challenges they have personally faced, people with disabilities may be uniquely equipped to address social needs in communities and society by creating innovative solutions to overcome disadvantages facing other people with similar disabilities” (Jacocks and Bell, 117-118). As employers, entrepreneurs with disabilities are more willing to accommodate other persons with disabilities because they “can recognize the potential of such people and also understand barriers first hand . . . entrepreneurs with a disability also aspire to empower other disabled individuals” (ibid., 120). Young persons with disabilities may be especially willing to consider this option.[23] The fact that not much research exists on this phenomenon limits what we can say about it, but research is developing.[24] Data published in 2019 by the Observatorio Estatal de la Discapacidad (2019) of the Spanish government indicate that: “a large part of the entrepreneurial activity carried out by persons with disabilities is focused on activities related to the third sector . . . 10,500 organizations, of which 73.3% are more than 20 years old and represent 36% of the social action third sector, in which – according to estimates made in 2013 − 5,181 million euros were earned and 4,894 million euros were spent alone in that year, 52% of the entities recorded a positive balance sheet, 28% recorded a compensated one, and, last but not least, 92% generated the funds for their own self-financing, [revealing] excellent economic management in the sector” (Ortiz García & Olaz Capitán 2021, 2).
Problems faced by persons with disabilities both stimulate them to become entrepreneurs and can provide obstacles in their way to doing so. In resolving the obstacles, research shows that friends and family can be especially important, as these entrepreneurs often lack access to other networks of support. It is also striking that government support for entrepreneurs with disabilities tends to be lower than for other special categories, as the table from the OECD report “The Missing Entrepreneurs” shows. This may also be because, as Jacocks and Bell suggest, “government services may place greater emphasis on helping disabled individuals secure stable employment, [with] entrepreneurship as more of a secondary option for disabled individuals” (p. 120).[25]
Many of these examples show some potential for steps towards involving persons with disabilities in employment or for tackling the attitudinal barriers that exaggerate the real barriers they face. Aiming interventions at young people, keeping persons experiencing difficulties connected to the workplace or providing them with pathways back into work, creating a supportive ecosystem around the transfer from school into work, often by involving and mobilising family members in a way that respects subsidiarity – all of these strengths show that social enterprises can provide effective solutions to the frontier problems that the ILO GBDN and the OECD identify as blocking improvement on the question of employment for persons with disabilities. Gallo and Melé (2024) even present a social enterprise, La Fageda, employing over 250 persons with disabilities, that use a “Doble Mirada” or “two ways of looking” at work that corresponds very closely to the subjective and objective dimensions discussed at the beginning of this text.
However, this discussion would not be complete without a brief discussion of some of the problems with this group of actors.
The one that is always mentioned is the lack of scalability of the business models of social enterprises.[26] Nevertheless, we should not over emphasise this problem. Firstly, we know that the vast majority of all businesses are small; in this sense, social enterprises are part of the norm. Secondly, it is a relatively new business form that is still finding its way and for which governments and other institutions are still finding the best way to support and regulate; compared to “standard” businesses, the ecosystem to support social enterprises is still underdeveloped. In the past, it was said that cooperatives suffered from similar limitations, but large clusters of cooperatives, such as the Mondragon system, exist and flourish. Thirdly, it is interesting that at least one of the cases we have looked at (Flow) have set themselves the task of producing a replicable and scalable model that can be applied elsewhere.
More important is the critique made by Mauksch and Dey (2023) in their article “Treating Disability as an Asset (Not a Limitation)” of the idea of “disability as an asset”. Here they focus on the kind of business that “treat[s] disabilities not as negative deviances from an able-bodied norm (read: limitation) but as conditions associated with “hidden talents” that can be unlocked through productive activities in the mainstream market” (p. 3). They refer to the case of a social enterprise founded by a UK couple to provide massage services in Nepal which recruits “blind masseurs” who are promoted to potential clients as having a special sense of touch, and therefore the capacity to provide a massage that is better than a person with sight. They market this capacity as the “magic fingers” of the enterprise’s name.
Mauksch and Dey show how Magic Fingers create a kind of hierarchy among disabled people and give preference to some. Although disabled people are employed by this business, it is therefore at the cost of creating a different kind of exclusion, that is, of certain levels or combinations of disability. Their research shows that “disability as an asset” is ambiguous; it develops a kind of meritocratic scheme between people with disabilities, excluding as much as including. This case is interesting to compare with Auticon, or Tech Era: in these latter cases, the difficulties that persons with disabilities are experiencing are part of the story – they are not “only” being “sold” as having a skill, or something “better”, than persons without disabilities, even if the “autism advantage” might come close to that.
In conclusion, it is clear that we need more data.[27] At present it is hard to give more than an impressionistic idea of the contribution that social enterprise is already offering, and could offer in the future, to the question of employing persons with disability. The particularly intriguing question of persons with disabilities as social entrepreneurs also needs further illumination. Without that, we are rather in the dark regarding the real potential for social enterprise to provide employment for persons with disabilities or pathways forward towards the horizon we mentioned at the beginning of the paper.
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[1] https://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convoptprot-e.pdf (last accessed 28.03.25)
[2] Data from many sources shows the disadvantages that persons with disabilities face in the labour market. The disability employment gap in the EU-27, for instance, was 24.4 percentage points in 2020, with only 50.7% of persons with disabilities aged 20-64 employed compared to 75.1% of their non-disabled peers (Grammenos 2022, 10). Pay gaps are also noticeable: “The age-adjusted disability pay gap in the EU 27 was 9.6% in 2019, for which we have data for all Member States. This figure covers all employees aged 15-74 working in firms with 10 or more employees, without restrictions for hours worked (public administration excluded). A higher gap can be found among managers, with the lowest gap among elementary occupations. A significant difference may be observed between men and women with disabilities” (Grammenos 2022, 7). Disability and economic insecurity are deeply intertwined, with disability both a cause and consequence of poverty. Structural barriers, economic instability, and lack of access to healthcare perpetuate this cycle, underscoring the urgent need for economic justice as integral to disability justice (Vallas et al. 2022, 1)
[3] See, for instance, the work of the Nobel Prize winner, Claudia Goldin, such as her 2021 book Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford.
[4]OECD (2022), Disability, Work and Inclusion: Mainstreaming in All Policies and Practices, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1eaa5e9c-en.
[5] FBOs tend to adopt a holistic approach, often aiming for long-term, transformative outcomes within the communities they serve. “Christian organizations, moreover, emphasize relationships arising from a business encounter in a special way because of the belief that they are responding to the most basic of Christian calls: to love one another and to be a gift to each other” (Racelis 2017, 123). See, for instance, https://www.vaticannews.va/it/chiesa/news/2023-09/storia-laudato-si-chiesa-ucraina-disabilita.html
See also Roundy and Evans (2016).
[6] https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_State_of_Social_Enterprise_2024.pdf (last accessed 09.03.25).
[7] In comparison, the same report notes that the size of the global apparel industry in the same year was $1.57 trillion, and the global advertising industry was $875 billion (https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_State_of_Social_Enterprise_2024.pdf)
[8] “Data from Europe and the US suggests that self-employment rates are higher among disabled people than those without . . . A study of 13 of the then 15 EU member states using European Community Household Panel data for the period 1995-2001 found that self-employment rates among disabled people are higher than among people without disabilities . . . Countries with a higher disabled/nondisabled differential, with the partial exception of Austria, are all countries with high rates of self-employment overall. This suggests that countries with high self-employment rates might be better placed to increase self-employment among disabled people.” (Kitching, 2014, 5)
[9] The EU Strategy emphasizes the role of social enterprises in bridging persons with disabilities to the labour market, offering targeted support and inclusive opportunities, particularly through EU-funded programmes (European Commission 2021, 12).
[10] https://www.businessanddisability.org/
(last accessed 08.03.25); OECD (2022), Disability, Work and Inclusion: Mainstreaming in All Policies and Practices, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1eaa5e9c-en.
[11] https://www.businessanddisability.org/at-a-glance (last accessed 08.03.25).
[12] There are also “Work Integration Social Enterprises” (WISEs) that have evolved from sheltered workshops, moving towards community-integrated employment by offering valued goods and services. This transition supports both market competitiveness and positive public perceptions of workers with disabilities (Lysaght et al. 2018, 21; Gallo & Melé, 2024).
[13] “The Commission calls on Member States to promote and encourage arts of persons with disabilities and raise awareness making them visible through exhibitions and performances; and make more art collections and museums accessible to persons with disabilities.” (European Commission 2021, 18).
https://orchestra.heart-heart.org/en/main/orchestra/introduce (last accessed 08.03.25). Like all orchestras, they do need some government or private funding, but they are no more dependent on this support than any other orchestra of a similar size with a similar programme of activities.
[15] https://www.inspireculture.org.uk/arts-culture/children-young-people/able-orchestra/ (last accessed 08.03.25).
[16] https://bsolive.com/events/bso-resound/ (last accessed 08.03.25).
[17] https://epicarts.org.uk/ (last accessed 08.03.25).
[18] https://art-enables.org/ (last accessed 08.03.25).
[19] https://ashesiventureincubator.medium.com/meet-derick-omari-founder-of-tech-era-8bdd31791d63 (last accessed 08.03.25).
[20] https://hr.asia/awards/2021-event/taiwan2021/flow-inc-tw-2021/ (last accessed 09.03.25).
[21] https://auticon.com/ (last accessed 09.03.25).
[22] https://www.pioneerspost.com/business-school/20210917/advantage-autism-the-social-business-champions-neurodiversity-work (last accessed 09.03.25).
[23] A notable trend in the ASEAN region is the rise of young leaders with disabilities as social entrepreneurs. Driven by a deep personal understanding of disability rights, these youth-led initiatives are pushing for greater inclusivity and workplace reform, positioning young entrepreneurs at the forefront of social change. “Most of these social enterprises are led by young social entrepreneurs, many of whom are persons with disabilities themselves. Trends in social entrepreneurship worldwide have shown the growing emergence of young leaders. Numerous studies show that young people today are highly motivated to generate positive social change and interested in developing innovative solutions through social entrepreneurship (UN DESA, 2020)” (Crosta & Sanders 2021, 13).
[24] Most of the research cited by Jacocks and Bell, for instance, dates from the last ten years.
[25] The OECD recommends flexible benefit systems that allow disabled entrepreneurs to re-enter support systems if their ventures fail, which could reduce perceived financial risks associated with leaving secure benefits (OECD 2014, p. 12).
[26] Added to this, the lack of a clear legal basis can be problematic. For instance, a lack of clear legal definitions for social enterprises in ASEAN countries, aside from exceptions like Vietnam, limits their growth, creating regulatory challenges for income-generating and social service activities. Legal clarity in defining SEs could significantly enhance the sector’s impact and sustainability. “Yet, there is still a lack of legal incorporation status for organisations that simultaneously pursue a social mission while carrying out profit-generating business activities, with the notable exception of Viet Nam which officially recognised SEs under its Enterprise Law in 2014 (British Council et al., 2018). Thailand also has a legal definition for SEs, but qualifying as a SE in Thailand has been described as a prohibitively difficult process.” (Crosta & Sanders 2021, 9).
[27] A key barrier to effective inclusion is the lack of high-quality, disability-related labour market data, as identified by the ILO’s field offices. Addressing this gap is essential for shaping inclusive employment policies and programmes (ILO 2015).