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Disability, Employment and the paradox of much higher levels of self-employment

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Simon Darcy discusses how to create a truly inclusive Australia that leaves no one behind.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 27, 2024

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This video video discusses the employment challenges faced by people with disabilities across various countries, particularly in Australia. It highlights poor employment rates due to structural barriers and negative employer attitudes. The speaker emphasizes the diversity within disability, mentioning various groups such as individuals with physical, vision, hearing, intellectual, developmental, and mental health disabilities.

The discussion also notes a high rate of self-employment among people with disabilities in Australia, which is 43% higher than the general population, prompting an investigation into the reasons for this phenomenon. The study incorporates a mixed-methods approach and draws on social ecological models and disability studies theory, emphasizing a social model rather than a medicalized view of disability.

Participants in self-employment often cite a desire for control and agency over their lives, as mainstream employment environments can be exclusionary. Motivations for self-employment include overcoming stigma and proving ability. The speaker shares experiences from various self-employed individuals who have started successful businesses in diverse fields, highlighting their expertise and contributions.

The research collected data through multiple methods, including digital outreach via disability organizations, incorporation of disability-focused questions in a government-sponsored survey, and gathering data from a panel of individuals with disabilities. Each method revealed different aspects of the self-employment landscape, with varying demographics and challenges.

Ultimately, the text underscores the need for systemic changes in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to increase inclusivity for people with disabilities, suggesting that tailored support and understanding of individual circumstances are essential for success in self-employment.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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The back, the background is that,

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in many countries around the world,

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and not just, Australia, there are

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very poor employment rates of people with disability

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for lots of reasons, including structural reasons,

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to do with, accessibility

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in the broad context.

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And where when we talk about accessibility,

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people quite often only think of wheelchair users.

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But, in the,

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in the disability study space, you know,

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it's also about, vision impairment

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or people who are blind hearing impairment,

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or people who are what we call capital D deaf, that is part

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of the deaf community,

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and they don't regard themselves as having a disability.

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They regard themselves as part of a different cultural group

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bound together by, sign language, for example.

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Um, it's also about people with intellectual

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or developmental disability.

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There's a lot more talk these days about people

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who are either on the autism spectrum or are neurodiverse.

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And of course, one of the largest groups of people

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with disability are those that have got,

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mental health related, disability as well.

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So when you're looking at employment rates,

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there are some significant issues

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and major variations between all those groups.

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Um, but, the, the overall rates for employing people

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with disability in most countries reach a plateau.

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And then, the, the figure hasn't changed

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for quite a while.

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When we were, when, when we were doing

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the background literature, I was,

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I'm very interested as a quantit,

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a mixed methods researcher.

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So I'm very interested in the quantitative,

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and I'm also very interested in the experience.

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But when we looked at, some background material

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around employment, one figure stuck out.

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And that was that in the Australian context,

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through Australian government figures, the

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rate of self-employment of people with disabilities

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was 43% higher than that for the general population.

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So that got us, asking the question why,

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and that's what kicked us off on this journey. Uh, and,

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Uh, so the, the study was framed to,

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look into the why we know,

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through some we research,

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not just in English speaking countries.

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And it's interesting because I gather your, also,

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the fluent Spanish speaker in the part

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of the world you are in.

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Uh, we also know from, some really good work by,

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banish researchers that the reasons, are quite,

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universal, that, structural barriers.

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But one of the biggest barriers to mainstream employment

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is the attitude of employers.

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So they, you know, research tells us that,

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it's not so much a job selection process

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when people are recruiting, but it's a job.

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Uh, it's a, it's a culling process of the applications

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that you get and that people are most likely

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to employ those who are most like themselves.

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And we've seen this in,

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and we,

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we talk very differently in the Australian context.

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We would talk about a person's cultural background,

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or their, ethnicity.

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We don't talk so much about race in Australia when we're

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discussing these issues.

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It's a little bit of a different context.

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And of course, we've also got, our First nations,

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our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as well.

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But that, any one of difference is unlikely

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to be hired by employers that don't consciously

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think about marginalized groups

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and welcome their applications

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through making statements like, you know, we are looking

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for the best person for the job.

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We strongly encourage, females,

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first Nations, people from different ethnic backgrounds

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and those with disability to apply.

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So, not surprisingly,

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when we then decided to look into the experiences of those

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that make a decision to be self-employed, we started

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to discover the the motivations for self-employment

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theoretical framework as outlined in that,

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article were twofold.

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So the first one is the social

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ecological, bro.

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Then I always get the pronunciation wrong,

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but one's, social ecology model.

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And there are a number, a number of different, versions

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Of this.

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It looks at, five multi-levels,

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for explaining,

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the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

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So it begins with the, intrapersonal the individual

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and their particular circumstance.

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It, the next level is at the

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interpersonal level that is between, individuals.

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Uh, it then looks at the,

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and these are described in different ways,

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in different ways.

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The models are looked at,

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it then looks at the organizational level

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or what some people call the meso level.

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Uh, but we were, we were also,

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very interested, in looking at the community,

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expectations

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and the community environment, for disability

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and disability citizenship.

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Um, and then above that, is the macro policy level.

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So with that framing of social ecology,

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it provides an understanding of the very complex way

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that, responses to

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employment and self-employment, interact,

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and create, a very unique,

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social context in each country,

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where we are looking at the, those issues.

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So that was one part of the theoretical framework,

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the social ecology.

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The other part of the theoretical framework was to look at,

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disability studies theory,

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and in particular social approaches to disability

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as opposed to medicalized approaches.

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So medical approaches to disability, really look at,

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disability as a deficit, as a problem of the individual

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at a very basic level.

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And so the World Health Organization frameworks talk about,

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the, medical conditions or the impairments,

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and then, look to seek to,

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rehabilitate the person, so that they, into society,

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disability studies flips it on its head.

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Um, somebody with a disability isn't inverted, sick

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or, in some way, disadvantage

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because of their, impairment.

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Um, impairment's been part of

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human diversity since the start of time.

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And different societies have treated,

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disability in very different ways.

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So within many First Nations cultures, people,

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who, have impairments or are,

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or gain impairments as they age, dealt

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with within family units

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and within the social, setting of those,

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particular,

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and there's some very good anthropological studies around

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that from a social model of disability, we

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turn the argument on its head.

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Um, and so very, a very understandable metaphor,

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from a wheelchair user's perspective is,

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a medical understanding would be, well,

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the person's not able to access a building

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because there are steps from a disability perspective.

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We flip it on its head and we say it's a social issue,

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because why was the building designed in a way

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that didn't, that didn't provide an enabling

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entrance through either ramps, lifts,

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or, building access in from the beginning.

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So it, it throws it from being an individual's, issue

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to being, a social, economic, political

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and cultural issue with a series of structural,

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problems that need to be,

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designed in a different way.

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So when you bring those two lenses together, we,

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we see that at, at the level

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of interpersonal organizational community and macro policy.

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There's a whole series of, better ways

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that the entrepreneurial ecosystem could be designed

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to be far more inclusive of people with disability.

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And, and on the website, we, we've got some,

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we've got five, five sets, five videos,

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that look at the,

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the reason why somebody decided to become self-employed.

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So, for most people, there was a motivat.

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The motivation was to fold.

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Uh, one was to take control and agency over their life.

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So their experiences were that they weren't able to get,

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open employment, or they had open employment,

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and they were not being given the same opportunities

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in career development.

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And so they were, it was almost like,

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well, you've got a job.

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What else do you want? You know, just do your work

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And, and, you are not, you know, you,

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you weren't seen to be somebody

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that could develop further within whatever that,

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company happened to be.

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So people made a decision to, take

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agency over their life

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and, take a massive risk,

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because we all know being self-employed is,

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far more difficult than being employed from the perspective

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of the economic risk that you take.

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Um, and, also the amount of time

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that it takes to become, profitable,

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and that there is a likelihood of failure.

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And it's very interesting in the entrepreneurial world.

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Uh, and this is, you know,

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people without disability as well.

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Uh, people don't like to talk about failure,

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but most good entrepreneurs in the traditional sense,

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have experienced failure multiple times

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before they get the business right, or,

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or get their ideas, so that they can be successful.

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So most, you know, most, businesses,

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have failed within the first five years

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or so, now that that experience is

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devastating for a person with an indu, with a disability

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if they've come off.

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And this, this is

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what makes the social situations different in different

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countries, if they, they've come off the Social

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Security Network, where they, you know,

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have their needs reasonably met,

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by the social services.

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Now, those social services vary radically

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from country to country.

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Uh, and we know that it's very different in the US to

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what it is in,

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Scandinavian countries, et cetera, et cetera.

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So, to, to go into self-employment,

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is a, is a bigger risk.

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And, but in Australia where we do have good social,

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social services, people were willing to take that risk,

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and they wanted to do so

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because they believed that they had something

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that they could, add to not just their own,

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social situation in being, you know,

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in having a successful business and more money,

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but also in wanting to give back to society.

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Because many, the, the,

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the underlying discourse in many countries is that people

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with disability are a burden on society,

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and we see that in the way it's reported in the paper,

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or that they're, a group that are to be, pitied

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for their lack of ability in whatever it is.

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So this group of people were motivated

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because they didn't enjoy mainstream employment experience.

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And then secondly, because they wanted to show

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that they've got tremendous ability

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and they want to help break down the, the terrible

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stereotypes, around stigma

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and attitude towards disability in society.

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So it, it's from those, it's from those points

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that we see them move into an enterprise that,

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they had a particular skill set for.

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So we, we saw a lot of, a lot of people

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may have had a technical expertise.

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Uh, so we've seen, you know,

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people go out into their own accountancy businesses,

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others into environmental planning, other into,

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human service businesses.

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Uh, but we case studied some absolutely,

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extraordinary businesses that were in, you know,

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different creative industries.

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And one of those was, for example, a,

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a person who designed, manufactured,

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and installed, top end swimming pools into some

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of the best houses around the country.

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So lit, literally this person, designed,

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manufactured and wanted to provide a service,

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where he also went out and installed.

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And, he, this is a person with a physical disability, so

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modified trucks, crane systems, obviously,

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other labor to assist, to show that

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he could go from client liaison to installation,

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and present a product that,

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has won many national awards.

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Um, others were in the import, business

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where they bought in assistive technology

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from all over the world.

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That was the best technology, to service,

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people with different types of disability.

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So yeah, for sure.

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Um, all sorts of sporting equipment for, people

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that played disability specific sports

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assistive technology like I'm using today.

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Uh, I don't have a headset on.

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I've got a, a very, a very

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high spec microphone that sits just behind my keyboard

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that's got six directional mics in it,

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and provides, a tremendous high quality,

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high quality audio experience

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because I'm not physically able

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to get my headsets on and off myself.

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Um, and that hooks into the speech recognition,

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software that I use, drag and dictate, et cetera.

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So there, there's all sorts of businesses,

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that were developed.

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But interestingly, from a, from a methods perspective, we,

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we had three forms

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of data collection from three different populations

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of people with disability.

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Uh, so I, I'll just outline what they are now.

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So the, the first one was what I would call,

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an elect, a digital snowball exercise.

18:46.635 --> 18:48.735
Uh, where I worked through,

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and I, I'd use this on previous studies

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that were very successful.

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I worked with disability organizations

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that were membership based to get calls

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to be involved in my research out there,

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because in most countries, there's not a listing

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of people with disability.

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So how do you access them?

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Well, one way to access them is

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through membership based organizations.

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And in the Australian context, again, there are,

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you know, I think I work with close to 150

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different organizations to get the message out.

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And, remembering that it's, even though,

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there's a higher rate than the general population, it's a,

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it's still a reasonably small percentage

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of the overall population of people with disability

19:46.205 --> 19:47.365
that are self-employed.

19:47.985 --> 19:52.405
So, it's, you know, roughly 10% of those 10

19:52.405 --> 19:55.725
to 15% of those that are working, are working

19:55.785 --> 19:58.325
as self-employed or in entrepreneurial spaces.

19:59.265 --> 20:03.605
So that means that, you know, to find your sample

20:04.265 --> 20:06.645
is far more difficult than just doing a general

20:07.415 --> 20:09.725
study on disability overall.

20:10.465 --> 20:13.405
So that, that was one way through electronic snowballing

20:13.405 --> 20:14.565
of organizations.

20:16.035 --> 20:20.855
The second way was that there's a,

20:21.095 --> 20:25.455
a yearly, a yearly sur survey that have been going

20:25.455 --> 20:29.365
for three or four years called the Startup Muster.

20:31.375 --> 20:35.995
Now, the Startup Muster is a, a survey of,

20:36.815 --> 20:40.995
the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Australia.

20:42.145 --> 20:46.285
Um, and it was funded by the Commonwealth government,

20:46.425 --> 20:47.725
and I was very lucky.

20:48.685 --> 20:52.505
Um, my university was also a contributor to the study.

20:53.125 --> 20:56.905
And so what we did was we developed a module

20:57.485 --> 20:59.505
on disability to put into that study.

21:00.325 --> 21:01.665
So that study,

21:03.425 --> 21:06.785
provided a very different profile

21:08.075 --> 21:11.495
of people than my electronic snowballing study.

21:11.995 --> 21:14.655
And I'll give you an example, of that.

21:14.875 --> 21:19.855
So about 10% of people who answered that survey

21:21.015 --> 21:22.255
identified as having a disability.

21:23.395 --> 21:27.975
The majority of them, something like 70%,

21:28.595 --> 21:31.655
had what we call an invisible disability.

21:32.955 --> 21:36.575
And, that is, that it's not something that's physically

21:37.105 --> 21:38.455
noticeable with the individual.

21:39.155 --> 21:43.335
Uh, it included aspects of neurodiversity

21:43.875 --> 21:48.095
and particularly highly functioning people

21:48.205 --> 21:50.615
with scientific and mathematical abilities.

21:51.635 --> 21:56.575
Um, it included people with a variety of, mental health,

21:57.275 --> 22:02.095
mental health identities, including,

22:02.395 --> 22:05.295
anxiety, depression,

22:05.555 --> 22:07.935
and other mental health disabilities.

22:08.635 --> 22:12.615
And also, it was,

22:13.485 --> 22:17.335
predominantly, of dominant

22:17.955 --> 22:21.735
ethnic background, predominantly male.

22:22.945 --> 22:25.045
Um, and so it's that classic

22:26.455 --> 22:31.205
nerdy tech geek entrepreneur that dominates,

22:31.265 --> 22:33.965
aspects of the lit, of, of the literature.

22:34.505 --> 22:38.925
Um, and so that was the, that was the second,

22:38.925 --> 22:40.205
sample that we had.

22:40.905 --> 22:45.765
The third sample was I, inverted comm purchased a panel

22:46.715 --> 22:47.965
from Qualtrics.

22:48.585 --> 22:52.285
Um, and Qualtrics operates, you know,

22:52.285 --> 22:53.605
it's a billion dollar, you know, billion,

22:54.185 --> 22:58.485
$1.5 billion success story out of Salt Lake City,

22:59.145 --> 23:03.885
a, a global company servicing some

23:03.885 --> 23:07.885
of the, major research houses around the world, as well

23:07.885 --> 23:10.045
as all the top universities.

23:10.385 --> 23:12.485
My university last year

23:12.485 --> 23:14.045
for the first time broke into the top a hundred

23:14.685 --> 23:16.205
universities in the world,

23:16.225 --> 23:19.245
and one of the youngest universities in that top a hundred.

23:20.065 --> 23:24.485
Um, and we, I actually developed the business case

23:24.545 --> 23:29.245
for getting Qualtrics, into our university system.

23:29.745 --> 23:33.365
And they offered, a panel of people with disability.

23:34.065 --> 23:36.645
So again, third sample,

23:36.705 --> 23:37.965
and this one was a little different.

23:37.965 --> 23:41.405
Again, they tended to be people with,

23:42.195 --> 23:44.765
they were across all disability types,

23:45.715 --> 23:48.775
But they tended to have, be independent people

23:49.925 --> 23:50.935
with a disability

23:51.115 --> 23:55.215
or low levels of support needs where my,

23:56.435 --> 23:58.815
my snowball sample had people

23:58.815 --> 24:00.815
with much higher levels of disability.

24:01.435 --> 24:05.935
And in, in employment, we know that the lower

24:06.555 --> 24:09.375
the support needs, the higher the employment rate,

24:10.495 --> 24:13.555
the higher the support needs, the lower the employment rate.

24:14.335 --> 24:16.235
So, yeah, the, each

24:16.235 --> 24:17.915
of those samples told us a little bit different.

24:18.655 --> 24:22.315
Um, and, so for example,

24:23.015 --> 24:27.395
the startup sample, were far more,

24:29.065 --> 24:33.635
what we would regard as what I call capital E entrepreneurs.

24:34.495 --> 24:38.595
So very much they'd been through, accelerator

24:38.615 --> 24:39.995
and incubator programs.

24:40.775 --> 24:45.275
Uh, they'd been, exposed to angel investors.

24:46.185 --> 24:51.115
They had a much better, input into,

24:51.165 --> 24:53.075
government assistance in the area.

24:53.975 --> 24:58.635
Uh, and as some of our research showed later,

24:59.085 --> 25:02.435
those people that were in the snowball sample,

25:02.655 --> 25:06.315
really struggled when it came to getting external finance

25:06.695 --> 25:08.635
to take their business to the next level

25:09.365 --> 25:12.815
because, the accelerator

25:12.815 --> 25:15.655
and incubator programs surprise, surprise,

25:17.495 --> 25:19.555
didn't really,

25:20.665 --> 25:23.275
have the required support.

25:23.425 --> 25:25.355
Some of them, literally,

25:25.595 --> 25:27.555
a person like me couldn't have got through the front door.

25:28.495 --> 25:31.395
But also, their systems weren't inclusive

25:32.215 --> 25:33.515
in the sense of most of them.

25:33.855 --> 25:38.235
We would regard as a cohort system, you start with a group

25:38.235 --> 25:40.635
of people, you finish with a group of people,

25:41.455 --> 25:44.955
you've gotta fit into the system where,

25:45.985 --> 25:50.195
what we, the, some of the action research

25:50.195 --> 25:52.875
that we did, that's not in the,

25:52.895 --> 25:54.635
that's not in that ecosystem.

25:54.815 --> 25:59.555
Uh, in the, social ecology paper showed that,

25:59.695 --> 26:03.835
there was a need for programs

26:03.905 --> 26:05.995
that could work more.

26:06.365 --> 26:11.275
One-on-one to accommodate different learning styles

26:11.695 --> 26:14.875
and different timeframes for education.

00:06 - The back, the background is that, in many countries around the world, and not just, Australia, there are very poor employment rates of people with disability for lots of reasons, including structural reasons, to do with, accessibility

00:33 - in the broad context. And where when we talk about accessibility, people quite often only think of wheelchair users. But, in the, in the disability study space, you know, it's also about, vision impairment or people who are blind hearing impairment, or people who are what we call capital D deaf, that is part of the deaf community, and they don't regard themselves as having a disability.

01:06 - They regard themselves as part of a different cultural group bound together by, sign language, for example. it's also about people with intellectual or developmental disability. There's a lot more talk these days about people who are either on the autism spectrum or are neurodiverse. And of course, one of the largest groups of people with disability are those that have got, mental health related, disability as well. So when you're looking at employment rates,

01:39 - there are some significant issues and major variations between all those groups. but, the, the overall rates for employing people with disability in most countries reach a plateau. And then, the, the figure hasn't changed for quite a while. When we were, when, when we were doing the background literature, I was, I'm very interested as a quantit, a mixed methods researcher.

02:15 - So I'm very interested in the quantitative, and I'm also very interested in the experience. But when we looked at, some background material around employment, one figure stuck out. And that was that in the Australian context, through Australian government figures, the rate of self-employment of people with disabilities was 43% higher than that for the general population. So that got us, asking the question why, and that's what kicked us off on this journey. and,

02:58 - so the, the study was framed to, look into the why we know, through some we research, not just in English speaking countries. And it's interesting because I gather your, also, the fluent Spanish speaker in the part of the world you are in. we also know from, some really good work by, banish researchers that the reasons, are quite, universal, that, structural barriers.

03:36 - But one of the biggest barriers to mainstream employment is the attitude of employers. So they, you know, research tells us that, it's not so much a job selection process when people are recruiting, but it's a job. it's a, it's a culling process of the applications that you get and that people are most likely to employ those who are most like themselves. And we've seen this in, and we,

04:15 - we talk very differently in the Australian context. We would talk about a person's cultural background, or their, ethnicity. We don't talk so much about race in Australia when we're discussing these issues. It's a little bit of a different context. And of course, we've also got, our First nations, our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as well. But that, any one of difference is unlikely to be hired by employers that don't consciously

04:50 - think about marginalized groups and welcome their applications through making statements like, you know, we are looking for the best person for the job. We strongly encourage, females, first Nations, people from different ethnic backgrounds and those with disability to apply. So, not surprisingly, when we then decided to look into the experiences of those that make a decision to be self-employed, we started

05:27 - to discover the the motivations for self-employment theoretical framework as outlined in that, article were twofold. So the first one is the social ecological, bro. Then I always get the pronunciation wrong, but one's, social ecology model. And there are a number, a number of different, versions Of this. It looks at, five multi-levels,

06:03 - for explaining, the entrepreneurial ecosystem. So it begins with the, intrapersonal the individual and their particular circumstance. It, the next level is at the interpersonal level that is between, individuals. it then looks at the, and these are described in different ways, in different ways. The models are looked at,

06:35 - it then looks at the organizational level or what some people call the meso level. but we were, we were also, very interested, in looking at the community, expectations and the community environment, for disability and disability citizenship. and then above that, is the macro policy level. So with that framing of social ecology, it provides an understanding of the very complex way

07:15 - that, responses to employment and self-employment, interact, and create, a very unique, social context in each country, where we are looking at the, those issues. So that was one part of the theoretical framework, the social ecology. The other part of the theoretical framework was to look at, disability studies theory, and in particular social approaches to disability

07:51 - as opposed to medicalized approaches. So medical approaches to disability, really look at, disability as a deficit, as a problem of the individual at a very basic level. And so the World Health Organization frameworks talk about, the, medical conditions or the impairments, and then, look to seek to, rehabilitate the person, so that they, into society, disability studies flips it on its head. somebody with a disability isn't inverted, sick

08:35 - or, in some way, disadvantage because of their, impairment. impairment's been part of human diversity since the start of time. And different societies have treated, disability in very different ways. So within many First Nations cultures, people, who, have impairments or are, or gain impairments as they age, dealt with within family units

09:10 - and within the social, setting of those, particular, and there's some very good anthropological studies around that from a social model of disability, we turn the argument on its head. and so very, a very understandable metaphor, from a wheelchair user's perspective is, a medical understanding would be, well, the person's not able to access a building because there are steps from a disability perspective.

09:46 - We flip it on its head and we say it's a social issue, because why was the building designed in a way that didn't, that didn't provide an enabling entrance through either ramps, lifts, or, building access in from the beginning. So it, it throws it from being an individual's, issue to being, a social, economic, political and cultural issue with a series of structural, problems that need to be, designed in a different way.

10:28 - So when you bring those two lenses together, we, we see that at, at the level of interpersonal organizational community and macro policy. There's a whole series of, better ways that the entrepreneurial ecosystem could be designed to be far more inclusive of people with disability. And, and on the website, we, we've got some, we've got five, five sets, five videos, that look at the, the reason why somebody decided to become self-employed.

11:15 - So, for most people, there was a motivat. The motivation was to fold. one was to take control and agency over their life. So their experiences were that they weren't able to get, open employment, or they had open employment, and they were not being given the same opportunities in career development. And so they were, it was almost like, well, you've got a job. What else do you want? You know, just do your work

11:53 - And, and, you are not, you know, you, you weren't seen to be somebody that could develop further within whatever that, company happened to be. So people made a decision to, take agency over their life and, take a massive risk, because we all know being self-employed is, far more difficult than being employed from the perspective of the economic risk that you take.

12:29 - and, also the amount of time that it takes to become, profitable, and that there is a likelihood of failure. And it's very interesting in the entrepreneurial world. and this is, you know, people without disability as well. people don't like to talk about failure, but most good entrepreneurs in the traditional sense, have experienced failure multiple times before they get the business right, or,

13:08 - or get their ideas, so that they can be successful. So most, you know, most, businesses, have failed within the first five years or so, now that that experience is devastating for a person with an indu, with a disability if they've come off. And this, this is what makes the social situations different in different countries, if they, they've come off the Social Security Network, where they, you know,

13:46 - have their needs reasonably met, by the social services. Now, those social services vary radically from country to country. and we know that it's very different in the US to what it is in, Scandinavian countries, et cetera, et cetera. So, to, to go into self-employment, is a, is a bigger risk. And, but in Australia where we do have good social,

14:15 - social services, people were willing to take that risk, and they wanted to do so because they believed that they had something that they could, add to not just their own, social situation in being, you know, in having a successful business and more money, but also in wanting to give back to society. Because many, the, the, the underlying discourse in many countries is that people with disability are a burden on society,

14:50 - and we see that in the way it's reported in the paper, or that they're, a group that are to be, pitied for their lack of ability in whatever it is. So this group of people were motivated because they didn't enjoy mainstream employment experience. And then secondly, because they wanted to show that they've got tremendous ability and they want to help break down the, the terrible stereotypes, around stigma and attitude towards disability in society.

15:26 - So it, it's from those, it's from those points that we see them move into an enterprise that, they had a particular skill set for. So we, we saw a lot of, a lot of people may have had a technical expertise. so we've seen, you know, people go out into their own accountancy businesses, others into environmental planning, other into, human service businesses. but we case studied some absolutely,

16:03 - extraordinary businesses that were in, you know, different creative industries. And one of those was, for example, a, a person who designed, manufactured, and installed, top end swimming pools into some of the best houses around the country. So lit, literally this person, designed, manufactured and wanted to provide a service, where he also went out and installed. And, he, this is a person with a physical disability, so

16:45 - modified trucks, crane systems, obviously, other labor to assist, to show that he could go from client liaison to installation, and present a product that, has won many national awards. others were in the import, business where they bought in assistive technology from all over the world. That was the best technology, to service, people with different types of disability.

17:23 - So yeah, for sure. all sorts of sporting equipment for, people that played disability specific sports assistive technology like I'm using today. I don't have a headset on. I've got a, a very, a very high spec microphone that sits just behind my keyboard that's got six directional mics in it, and provides, a tremendous high quality, high quality audio experience

18:00 - because I'm not physically able to get my headsets on and off myself. and that hooks into the speech recognition, software that I use, drag and dictate, et cetera. So there, there's all sorts of businesses, that were developed. But interestingly, from a, from a methods perspective, we, we had three forms of data collection from three different populations of people with disability.

18:34 - so I, I'll just outline what they are now. So the, the first one was what I would call, an elect, a digital snowball exercise. where I worked through, and I, I'd use this on previous studies that were very successful. I worked with disability organizations that were membership based to get calls to be involved in my research out there, because in most countries, there's not a listing

19:08 - of people with disability. So how do you access them? Well, one way to access them is through membership based organizations. And in the Australian context, again, there are, you know, I think I work with close to 150 different organizations to get the message out. And, remembering that it's, even though, there's a higher rate than the general population, it's a, it's still a reasonably small percentage

19:43 - of the overall population of people with disability that are self-employed. So, it's, you know, roughly 10% of those 10 to 15% of those that are working, are working as self-employed or in entrepreneurial spaces. So that means that, you know, to find your sample is far more difficult than just doing a general study on disability overall. So that, that was one way through electronic snowballing of organizations.

20:16 - The second way was that there's a, a yearly, a yearly sur survey that have been going for three or four years called the Startup Muster. Now, the Startup Muster is a, a survey of, the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Australia. and it was funded by the Commonwealth government, and I was very lucky. my university was also a contributor to the study. And so what we did was we developed a module on disability to put into that study.

21:00 - So that study, provided a very different profile of people than my electronic snowballing study. And I'll give you an example, of that. So about 10% of people who answered that survey identified as having a disability. The majority of them, something like 70%, had what we call an invisible disability. And, that is, that it's not something that's physically noticeable with the individual.

21:39 - it included aspects of neurodiversity and particularly highly functioning people with scientific and mathematical abilities. it included people with a variety of, mental health, mental health identities, including, anxiety, depression, and other mental health disabilities. And also, it was, predominantly, of dominant ethnic background, predominantly male.

22:22 - and so it's that classic nerdy tech geek entrepreneur that dominates, aspects of the lit, of, of the literature. and so that was the, that was the second, sample that we had. The third sample was I, inverted comm purchased a panel from Qualtrics. and Qualtrics operates, you know, it's a billion dollar, you know, billion, $1.5 billion success story out of Salt Lake City,

22:59 - a, a global company servicing some of the, major research houses around the world, as well as all the top universities. My university last year for the first time broke into the top a hundred universities in the world, and one of the youngest universities in that top a hundred. and we, I actually developed the business case for getting Qualtrics, into our university system. And they offered, a panel of people with disability.

23:34 - So again, third sample, and this one was a little different. Again, they tended to be people with, they were across all disability types, But they tended to have, be independent people with a disability or low levels of support needs where my, my snowball sample had people with much higher levels of disability. And in, in employment, we know that the lower

24:06 - the support needs, the higher the employment rate, the higher the support needs, the lower the employment rate. So, yeah, the, each of those samples told us a little bit different. and, so for example, the startup sample, were far more, what we would regard as what I call capital E entrepreneurs. So very much they'd been through, accelerator and incubator programs. they'd been, exposed to angel investors.

24:46 - They had a much better, input into, government assistance in the area. and as some of our research showed later, those people that were in the snowball sample, really struggled when it came to getting external finance to take their business to the next level because, the accelerator and incubator programs surprise, surprise, didn't really, have the required support.

25:23 - Some of them, literally, a person like me couldn't have got through the front door. But also, their systems weren't inclusive in the sense of most of them. We would regard as a cohort system, you start with a group of people, you finish with a group of people, you've gotta fit into the system where, what we, the, some of the action research that we did, that's not in the, that's not in that ecosystem.

25:54 - in the, social ecology paper showed that, there was a need for programs that could work more. One-on-one to accommodate different learning styles and different timeframes for education.

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