Employers and Inclusive Working Life: Nordic Perspectives on Disability and Work

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About this webinar

Inclusive working life for persons with disabilities remains a key priority in the Nordic countries. Despite strong policy ambitions, many persons with disabilities continue to face barriers to entering and remaining in employment. These barriers are shaped by workplace practices, employer expectations, labour-market institutions and prevailing norms about productivity and work ability.

This webinar presents recent Nordic research that explores work inclusion from an employer perspective. The focus is on how inclusion is understood and practiced at the workplace level, and how policies and initiatives aimed at promoting inclusion may both enable and constrain employment opportunities.

Based on empirical studies from Denmark and Norway, the webinar highlights factors influencing successful work inclusion, such as knowledge, flexibility, openness and leadership, as well as broader structural and normative dimensions, including ableism and assumptions about the “ideal worker”.

This webinar is organised in cooperation with the Nordic Welfare Centre and is a part of the project “Inclusive Working Life – a Future Issue for the Nordic Region” which is funded by the Labour Market Committee under the Nordic Committee of Senior Officials for Labour (ÄK-A).

Presentations

Kaja Larsen Østerud
Employer attitudes and hiring practices towards disabled jobseekers in Norway

Julia Salado-Rasmussen
Danish employers’ perspectives on inclusion of people with mobility disabilities

Target groups

The webinar is relevant for researchers, policymakers, labour-market authorities, employer representatives and others working with inclusive working life and disability policy.

Lecturers

Kaja Larsen Østerud, PhD and researcher at OsloMet, Østerud’s research topics are rooted in the themes of inclusion, discrimination, and the relationship marginalized groups have with the welfare state, with a particular emphasis on disability studies.

Julia Salado-Rasmussen, PhD, Senior Associate Professor at University College Copenhagen. Salado-Rasmussen’s research focuses on active labour market policies (ALMP) and interventions targeting vulnerable groups in the labour market.

Tor Andreas Bremnes, Managing Director at InClue – a recruitment and competence centre with the ambition of helping significantly more people with disabilities gain the opportunity to use their skills in working life. InClue was founded by the Norwegian Association of Disabled.

William Korte, Chairperson of the Danish Association of Youth With Disabilities (SUMH) , which is an umbrella organisation led by and working for young people with disabilities.

Contact person

Nora Tobiasson
Project Manager at NIVA
email: nora.tobiasson@niva.org