Employing people with disabilities

I have worked for years and years in the area of accessibility; it has remained an area of focus and passion for me even when I have been formally assigned to different areas at IBM.  I am familiar with all of the arguments about why accessibility makes good business sense. We have moved beyond humanitarian arguments that suggest “it’s the right thing to do,” and we have pointed out that it is in fact important for businesses to be accessible and therefore attract talented employees that happen to have a disability. We point out that there is a talent war, and that we don’t know where the next “big ideas” will come from; we don’t want to block out large portions of potential talent and genius. We point out that we have an aging workforce, and that we need to have an accessible environment so that aging workers that have incipient “disabilities” (reduced hearing, vision, mobility) can still work productively. We point out the expense for the rest of society, if large sectors of the population are on public welfare.

A country like India turns all of these arguments upside down. It is a young country - -this from Wikipedia:

In India, more than 50% of its population is below the age of 25 and more than 65% hovers below the age of 35….It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan

So discussions about accommodating an aging workforce here clearly don’t resonate. Also, arguments about “it’s a talent war for people” don’t resonate as well as they do in the US; the population is huge, as is the population of unemployed individuals. I don’t know if the “public welfare” issues resonate either; I don’t know how much (or whether)  the government (and therefore the taxpayers) are supporting individuals that don’t work because of disability. Since we do pay social security/welfare to individuals in the US, the argument can be brought back to taxpayers….it is in their self interest to keep as many people employed and employable as possible.

So maybe, in India, the argument needs to come back to humane concerns, and “it’s the right thing to do.” But then “accessibility” needs to stand in line with a long list of social ills in India - - illiteracy, poverty, homelessness….