IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jintdv/v34y2022i5p1002-1017.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Disability inclusive employment in urban Malawi: A multi‐perspective interview study

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer Remnant
  • Lena Wånggren
  • Sarah Huque
  • Katherine Sang
  • Limbani Kachali
  • James Richards

Abstract

The paper presents interview data from Malawian government representatives, trade unionists, employers and people with disabilities from the country's largest cities Lilongwe and Blantyre. Findings relate to the gap between the discourse of employers and government officials and that of workers with disabilities. Firstly, we find a policy‐based assumption of a formalised workforce that is not representative of the predominantly informal disabled workforce. Secondly, the disruptive, intermittent and often reactive nature of non‐governmental organisation (NGO) interventions can limit long‐term inclusivity agendas and undermine the work of disabled activists in Malawi. Lastly, we present findings on the stigmatised nature of disability in these urban centres. We find that stigma is economic: Urban workers with disabilities are discriminated against locally by employers, landlords and banks on assumptions they will not produce or earn enough to meet productivity demands, rent or repayment costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Remnant & Lena Wånggren & Sarah Huque & Katherine Sang & Limbani Kachali & James Richards, 2022. "Disability inclusive employment in urban Malawi: A multi‐perspective interview study," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(5), pages 1002-1017, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:34:y:2022:i:5:p:1002-1017
    DOI: 10.1002/jid.3678
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3678
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/jid.3678?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maren Duvendack & Philip Mader, 2020. "Impact Of Financial Inclusion In Low‐ And Middle‐Income Countries: A Systematic Review Of Reviews," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 594-629, July.
    2. Hazarika, Gautam & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2008. "Household Access to Microcredit and Child Work in Rural Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 843-859, May.
    3. Bolnick, Bruce R., 1992. "Moneylenders and informal financial markets in Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 57-68, January.
    4. Morfit, N. Simon, 2011. ""AIDS is Money": How Donor Preferences Reconfigure Local Realities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 64-76, January.
    5. Le Fanu, Guy, 2014. "International development, disability, and education: Towards a capabilities-focused discourse and praxis," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 69-79.
    6. Jean‐Francois Trani & Mitchell Loeb, 2012. "Poverty and disability: A vicious circle? Evidence from Afghanistan and Zambia," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24, pages 19-52, January.
    7. Ellis, Frank & Mdoe, Ntengua, 2003. "Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 1367-1384, August.
    8. James Sumberg & Justin Flynn & Philip Mader & Grace Mwaura & Marjoke Oosterom & Robert Sam‐Kpakra & Ayodele Ibrahim Shittu, 2020. "Formal‐sector employment and Africa's youth employment crisis: Irrelevance or policy priority?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 38(4), pages 428-440, July.
    9. Ellis, Frank & Bahiigwa, Godfrey, 2003. "Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 997-1013, June.
    10. Nora Groce & Maria Kett & Raymond Lang & Jean-Francois Trani, 2011. "Disability and Poverty: the need for a more nuanced understanding of implications for development policy and practice," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(8), pages 1493-1513.
    11. Ellis, Frank & Kutengule, Milton & Nyasulu, Alfred, 2003. "Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 1495-1510, September.
    12. Michael M. Mambo & Muna Salih Meky & Nobuyuki Tanaka & Jamil Salmi, 2016. "Improving Higher Education in Malawi for Competitiveness in the Global Economy," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 24381, December.
    13. Pauw, Karl & Thurlow, James & Bachu, Murthy & Van Seventer, Dirk Ernst, 2011. "The economic costs of extreme weather events: a hydrometeorological CGE analysis for Malawi," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 177-198, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mary Wickenden & Philip Mader & Stephen Thompson & Jackie Shaw, 2022. "Mainstreaming disability inclusive employment in international development," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(5), pages 933-941, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mwale, Martin Limbikani, 2022. "Unintended consequences of farm input subsidies: women’s contraceptive usage and knock-on effects on children," MPRA Paper 112689, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Maconachie, Roy & Hilson, Gavin, 2016. "Re-Thinking the Child Labor “Problem” in Rural sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Sierra Leone’s Half Shovels," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 136-147.
    3. Mackenzie, Catrina A. & Ahabyona, Peter, 2012. "Elephants in the garden: Financial and social costs of crop raiding," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 72-82.
    4. Santotomas Licimaco Aguilar-Pinto & Julio Cesar Quispe-Mamani & Dominga Asunción Calcina-Álvarez & Nelly Jacqueline Ulloa-Gallardo & Roxana Madueño-Portilla & Mindi Fabiola Lizárraga-Álvarez & Adderly, 2023. "Public Services in the Household and Their Effect on Poverty, Analysis for the Peruvian Case, 2021," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-23, June.
    5. Phiri, Isaac, 2020. "The effect of access to finance on commercialisation of smallholder maize farmers in Eswatini," Research Theses 334755, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    6. Laibuni, N. & Kirui, L., 2018. "Transforming Livestock Production through Systems Thinking Approach: the case of West Pokot and Narok Counties," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 276020, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Khan, Qaiser & Faguet, Jean-Paul & Ambel, Alemayehu, 2017. "Blending Top-Down Federalism with Bottom-Up Engagement to Reduce Inequality in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 326-342.
    8. Timothy R. Silberg & Robert B. Richardson & Maria Claudia Lopez, 2020. "Maize farmer preferences for intercropping systems to reduce Striga in Malawi," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 12(2), pages 269-283, April.
    9. Quang Tran, Tuyen, 2012. "A review on the link between nonfarm activities, land and rural livelihoods in Vietnam and developing countries," MPRA Paper 55850, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Nov 2013.
    10. Maia Green, 2015. "Making Africa middle class: From poverty reduction to the production of inequality in Tanzania," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(2), pages 295-309, June.
    11. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen & Selma Walther, 2021. "Where did it go wrong? Marriage and divorce in Malawi," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), pages 505-545, May.
    12. Nicholas R. Magliocca, 2015. "Model-Based Synthesis of Locally Contingent Responses to Global Market Signals," Land, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-35, September.
    13. Mahwish Siraj & Humayun Khan, 2019. "Impact of Micro Hydropower Projects on Household Income, Expenditure and Diversification of Livelihood Strategies in Azad Jammu and Kashmir," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 45-63.
    14. World Bank, 2011. "Who Governs Rural Russia?," World Bank Publications - Reports 27449, The World Bank Group.
    15. Frances Cleaver & Anna Toner, 2006. "The evolution of community water governance in Uchira, Tanzania: The implications for equality of access, sustainability and effectiveness," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(3), pages 207-218, August.
    16. Diether W. Beuermann & Maria Amelina, 2018. "Does participatory budgeting improve decentralized public service delivery? Experimental evidence from rural Russia," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 339-379, November.
    17. Tilahun, Mesfin & Maertens, Miet & Deckers, Jozef & Muys, Bart & Mathijs, Erik, 2016. "Impact of membership in frankincense cooperative firms on rural income and poverty in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 95-108.
    18. Senaratna Sellamuttu, Sonali, 2013. "How access to irrigation influences poverty and livelihoods: a case study from Sri Lanka. Impact assessment of infrastructure projects on poverty reduction," IWMI Working Papers H045795, International Water Management Institute.
    19. Ahmed, M. & Gautam, M. & Sen, B., 2018. "Waves of Change: Understanding Ascent, Descent and Persistence of Poverty in Rural Bangladesh," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277340, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Rita Afsar, 2010. "Poverty, Inequality and the Challenges of Pro-Poor Governance in Bangladesh," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 5(2), pages 187-219, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:34:y:2022:i:5:p:1002-1017. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5102/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.