The athletic work force: Sport as a key to employment for people with intellectual disabilities?

People with disabilities are employed at lower rates than non-disabled individuals and, among people with disabilities, those with intellectual disabilities have most difficulty finding and keeping employment. The reasons for the low labour participation among people with intellectual disabilities are many. Sport participation has a number of positive effects for the individual, and it is reasonable to hypothesise that sport participation favours labour-force participation for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

The dual aim of the current study was to investigate labour market participation among Swedish athletes with intellectual disabilities attending Special Olympics Invitational Games, and to investigate these athletes' experiences regarding the effect of sport participation on finding and keeping a job.

The study design includes two parallel data collections, a survey and an interview study. The survey was analysed using descriptive statistics and the interviews were analysed using content analysis.

The major result of the survey was the large number of individuals with intellectual disabilities who were in work: among men, 72% and, among women, 44%. This result was encouraging and differs from previous statistics on employment among Swedes with intellectual disabilities. The content analysis resulted in a first step in the categories manual work, individual sports and team sports, and in a second step, where the relation between sports and work was analysed, in two categories, namely indirect and direct relations between sport and work.

To improve chances for individuals with intellectual disabilities to find and keep a job, sports participation should be encouraged.