The Paralympics – Will It Benefit People With Disabilities?

The Paralympics – Will It Benefit People With Disabilities?
The Paralympics is perhaps the most high profile public event specifically for people with disabilities. Advertising for the Olympics and general advertising by official Olympic sponsors routinely features a mixture of Olympic and Paralympic athletes. The IOC and the Paralympics in particular seek to promote and celebrate the abilities, rather than disabilities, of the Paralympic athletes.

The above suggests that the Paralympics is, at the very least, positive and affirming for people with disabilities. But does the average person with a disability agree with this? A recent study commissioned by Scope suggests that the majority of disabled people do not. 65% of disabled people, and 62% of the parents of disabled people, said they believed that the Olympics and the Paralympics should be merged. The majority of these people believed that merging the Olympics and the Paralympics would assist athletes with disabilities to be taken more seriously. In fact, 22% of disabled people surveyed said that the Paralympics makes them look second class and 20% said it was patronising.

More importantly, will the Paralympics bring any practical benefit to people with disabilities, for example by increasing the number of employers who are able to see past a person’s disability and focus on their relevant abilities? This is unlikely. A study in 2011 by Richard Berthoud of the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex suggested that, despite the policy and legislative initiatives of the last 30 years, the disadvantage, in employment terms, of having a disability increased from 1987 until 2000 and has subsequently remained at the same level.

Berthoud pointed out that ‘The same period witnessed a major positive shift in the economic identity of women with children’ but has not seen the same positive shift in economic identity of people with disabilities. Research by the Discrimination Advice Centre supports these findings and shows an increase in complaints of discrimination including disability discrimination.

The IOC and the Paralympics do not, of course, exist to increase employment opportunities for disabled people. The publicity, promotional material and advertising associated with the Olympics and Paralympics should not, however, be allowed to disguise the reality that people with a disability are still at a significant disadvantage in the employment market in Britain, regardless of: (1) whether or not their disability directly affects their ability to work, (2) whether or not reasonable adjustments to a job description or a workplace would render their disability irrelevant, and (3) government policy and the provisions of the Equality Act 2010.

About the Author
Dave Philips
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