Changing Nature of Work and Society: The Impact on Disability Issues and Policies

One of the most dramatic facts of rehabilitation today is that fully 60 percent of all work disabled individuals who are of working age (16-64) are between the ages of 45 and 64. Rehabilitation's traditional view of these persons, usually expressed implicitly rather than explicitly, is that they are "too old" for services, that their expected careers would be too short for the "$10 return on every dime invested" payoff to occur. Yet, there is where the bulk of the adult population with disability is. Something is wrong with a world-view that largely excludes three-fifths of the target population. My point is that rehabilitation professionals cannot ignore demography. Rehabilitation is ignoring its greatest stimulants to expansion - a growing population of people with disabilities, an urgent cry from business to help, an emerging capacity of technology to provide much of that help. CONTENTS: 1) Vocational Rehabilitation for Tomorrow's World: A British View 2) Vocational Rehabili