Categorizing Clients with Disabilities: -Exploring the Gap between Political Goals and Practice in Municipal Employment Centres

Governments across Scandinavia have continuously proclaimed goals of raising the employment rate for people with disabilities. However, the employment rate for people with disabilities has been significantly lower than that of people without disabilities for more than two decades. The municipal employment centres and as such the individual caseworkers have substantial discretion in categorizing clients with permanent impairments. Earlier studies have largely focused on employment at the stage when the impairment has been categorized. This study offers new insight by exploring the process by which people with permanent impairments are categorized in Danish job centres. Results from a survey (N=69) and qualitative interviews (N=9) with caseworkers show a very low degree of formal categorization as well as a low degree of attention to disability as a target group. However, a lack of focus in job centres does not mean that no classification is performed as caseworkers use categories from adjacent political or social categories e.g. the flexi-job scheme. One consequence of the lack of classification could be that job centres do not identify impairments in unemployed thereby lowering the possibilities to assist them. However, a higher level of classification also entails possible downsides such as stigmatization.