Kontakt 2014, 16(2):e132-e137 | DOI: 10.1016/j.kontakt.2014.05.006

Economic activity of the visually impaired: An evaluation of the successes of the visually impaired with regard to the market economySocial Sciences - Review article

Pavel Novák

Katolická univerzita v Ružomberku, Pedagogická fakulta, katedra sociální práce, Slovenská republika

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the participation and the degree of success of the visually impaired in the labor market with regard to the market economy in the Czech Republic.
The method used consisted of the application and comparison of statistical information on persons with disabilities, collected by order of the Czech government, the Czech Statistical Office in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports.
The economic activity of the visually impaired was not a direct focus of the statistical survey. The data was collected for the disabled as a whole. However, at the personal request of the author, the Czech Statistical Office has recalculated the data and provided us with it.
This paper briefly describes the situation regarding the workplace activities of the visually impaired before 1989 in the former Czechoslovakia. It recognizes the impact of unemployment and the importance of work for people with disabilities, as well as briefly glossing over the most common hurdles preventing them from finding employment.
In other parts, statistical data is compared from a nationwide survey which presented the fact that the Czech Republic has an estimated 1,015,548 persons with disabilities.
As seen in the results, the number of people with some form of visual disability is approaching ninety thousand. In the group researched, there were 6331 persons economically active who were visually impaired; from that number, women accounted for less than one-third. Similarly, in the whole group of people with disabilities and even the visually handicapped, information shows that in the group of economically active persons, the majority hold proper employment. Roughly 15% of those economically active are self-employed.

Keywords: visually impaired; economic activity; employment; disabled; unemployment

Received: November 19, 2013; Accepted: May 14, 2014; Published: June 23, 2014  Show citation