Originally published here.

The last decade has seen growing openness and acceptance of people with disabilities both in public space and in the workplace. This has been shown by formal and legalsolutions, including the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of  Persons with Disabilities by most countries. The slow improvement of the situation has been indicated by the statistical data showing an increase in the percentage of employed PwD . Percentage of persons with disabilities in employment in 2020 was 54% in Finland and 42% in Poland, employment gap between persons with disabilities and persons without disabilities was 20 pp. in Finland and 32 pp. in Poland. The results of semiotic research carried out on the basis of the analysis of cultural texts, i.e., texts from the press or Internet, films or advertisements, also indicate the improvement of the image of people with disabilities in the media and the willingness to introduce “normality” to the perception of this issue.

However, the way to the full inclusion of PwD is still very long. Despite the increasing employment rates of people with disabilities in various countries, their levels are still lower than those of people who do not suffer from any disabilities.

The results of the research conducted by many teams of scientists indicate that thelow level of knowledge about disability is one of the main causes of unfavourable socialperception of PwD, and consequently a barrier to their effective inclusion.

The keyaspect of the inclusion of PwD in the workplace is how they are perceived by employers.It is because the latter make ultimate decisions on who gets a job [

However, the perception of people with disabilities depends on the conditions present in a given country, that is, applicable legal solutions, support system, social atmosphere, state policy in this respect or knowledge of the subject. The situation may look different in different countries  because the perception of PwD may be significantly influenced by the specific features of  the culture of a given place, measured, e.g., by means of the so-called dimensions of culture. Hofstede proposed standardized quantitative indexes on a 0–100 scale measuring particular dimensions of culture, which can be used to describe the characteristics of communitiesin various nationalities.

In the research, the results of which are presented inthis article, we wanted to check how employers from countries characterized by differentcultural dimensions perceive issues of PwD, especially in the workplace. Poland andFinland were chosen for comparisons as they vary substantially in terms of the cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede.

What seems to be important from the point of view of disability issues are the indexes measuring three dimensions, namely PDI (Power Distance), MAS (Masculinity) and UAI(Uncertainty Avoidance). The PDI index groups communities according to the powerdistance—the higher the PDI value (higher power distance), the greater the acceptanceof social inequalities resulting from the privileges of power.

The dimension of femininityvs. the masculinity of society is described by the MAS index. Feminine societies (lowMAS index) are characterized by strong care for relationships with others, in contrastto masculine societies (high MAS index) where the emphasis is put on competition and achieving success.

The level of risk in ambiguous or unfamiliar situations experienced in a given society is measured by the UAI index, the high value of which indicates high social concerns about new situations or unknown behaviours. According to Hofstede’s dimen-sions, Poland is classified as one of the countries with high power distance, characterised by masculine culture, with a high value of the uncertainty avoidance index.

On the other hand, Finland is classified as one of the countries with low power distance, with a typically feminine culture and relatively high openness to new and unconventional behaviours and situations. The concept and results of Hofstede’s research have both supporters and opponents, whereas criticism concerns substantive as well as methodological issues. However, it is worth noting that research done by other authors confirms the cultural diversity of European countries, especially in the context of social relations,including openness to people with disabilities.

The advantage of Hofstede’s approach is the quantitative nature of the research results—this makes it possible not only to determine the differences between the dimensions of culture in different countries but also to assesstheir size. The following research hypothesis was formulated: In Poland and Finland,countries characterized by different cultural dimensions, opinions of the employers on issues concerning PwD vary substantially.

The analyses carried out on representative samples of employers from Poland andFinland allowed us to confirm the research hypothesis, as they showed the occurrenceof significant differences in the perception of disability, which may indicate an influenceof cultural differences on the evaluation of the situation in this area. To our best knowl-edge, so far, there has been no research on openness towards people with disabilities inthe workplace in Poland and Finland that could be comparable with results presentedin this article. Due to that, it is impossible to directly relate the obtained results to theresults of other researchers. The research on the functioning of people with disabilitiesin society indicates significant disproportions between different countries in various dimensions, which motivated the authors to conduct their own comparative research that was narrowed down to the assessment of the situation of people with disabilities inthe workplace. This subject has been analysed by other authors but in different contexts.

Researchers focused on the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace in specific countries, describing activities related to inclusion and presenting variousconcepts of social inclusion/social exclusion of PwD. Summarizing this research, however, it is necessary to point out its limitations. First of all, it was conducted in only two countries, which significantly limits the possibility of drawing conclusions. In the future,it would be worth extending this type of research to other countries as well.

Secondly,it is worth analysing the selected questions not only in relation to the characteristics of respondents participating in the survey, but also other issues raised in the questionnaire,such as acceptance and willingness to employ people with various types of disability oropenness to training and improving competences. Thirdly, other analytical methods may be applied including multivariate approaches, e.g., a regression analysis with a dummy variable representing countries and with covariates as controls. Last but not least, it would  be worth comparing the opinions of research participants with official statistics in the área of professional activity of people with disabilities.

You can read the complete article here.