Parents with disabilities exercise rights arising from both aspects of their identity as parents and as persons with disabilities in different areas of life. As employees, they are entitled to all the rights guaranteed to parents, as well as to all the rights arising from their status as persons with disabilities. But what happens when those two dimensions intersect to create unique challenges?
The COFACE Disability Platform for the rights of persons with disabilities and their families has carried out a review of EU policies in the fields of employment and work-life balance, to assess whether they provide for targeted measures in support to working parents with disabilities. This review represents an initial step in a reflective process aimed at enhancing the principle of equal opportunity and the protection against discrimination for parents with disabilities. In doing so, it adopts an intersectional approach that fully aligns with the social model of disability and the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The aim of this review was to study the intersection between disability rights and work-life balance policies at EU level, in order to shed light on the specific realities and needs of working parents with disabilities, highlight gaps in recognition of this specific group, spotlight existing measures to support their work-life balance, and make recommendations for future targeted and universal strategies to address their compounding vulnerabilities.
Results of the review
The results indicate that, to date, a greater attention has been paid to the needs of working parents with disabilities in social policies focusing on work-life balance, employment and child poverty, than in disability policies and legislation per se. This points to the strong mainstreaming of disability rights in different policy fields (for instance with explicit references to parents with disabilities in the EU work-life balance directive and the European Child Guarantee), but also highlights the need to strengthen the gender and family dimensions of disability policy at EU level.
Having said this, workers with disabilities, whether they are parents or not, benefit from strong protections again discrimination on the ground of disability, pursuant to the provisions Council Directive 2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation. Not only is disability explicitly listed in the Directive as one of the prohibited grounds for discrimination, but the text also includes specific measures to ensure that the principle of equal treatment is effectively applied to the unique needs of persons with disabilities, notably through the obligation to provide reasonable accommodation. The Disability Employment Package is also a strong starting point for boosting the rights of disabled workers, but the package lacks a family dimension and specific attention to working parents and carers with disabilities.
While this review focused on EU rather than national policy, we have included examples from different Member States that have developed measures specifically targeting parents with disabilities (e.g. prioritising access to ECEC for children with disabled parents, developing specific parental leave measures, facilitating access to public transport and more), as well as universal measures which benefit all types of workers (e.g. flexible work arrangements).
Read the full review here
