Social Employment Practices of People with Hearing Impairment (Based on the Materials of a Sociological Study in Barnaul)

Akhmedova Angelina Rustamovna Student, Department of General Sociology and Conflictology, Altai State University 656049, Russia, Altai Krai, Barnaul, Dimitrova str., 66, office 520 axmedovaangelina@mail.ru Other publications by this author     Koda Egor Aleksandrovich Student, Department of General Sociology and Conflictology, Altai State University 656949, Russia, Altai Krai, Barnaul, Dimitrova str., 66, office 520 kodaegor@yandex.ru Other publications by this author     Dylkina Tatyana Viktorovna Senior Lecturer, Department of Physical Education, Altai State University 656049, Russia, Altai Krai, Barnaul, Socialist str., 68 tdylkina@mail.ru

Fomenko Alina Pavlovna Student, Department of Sociology and Conflictology, Altai State University 656049, Russia, Altai Krai, Barnaul, Lenin str., 61 alina_fomenko2001@mail.ru

Currently, special importance is attached to the problems of people with disabilities, the issue of their integration into society, full socialization. This is due to the fact that every year there is an increase in the number of disabled people not only for diseases related to intellectual disabilities, but also physical disabilities. Due to the fact that Russia is a social democratic state, the manifestation of increased attention to this category of citizens should be considered important and necessary. Despite a significant historical path in terms of humane treatment of disabled people, their interests, the need for people with disabilities to enter society, there are a number of barriers that must be overcome for disabled people to live a comfortable life ^[1]. For wheelchair users, certain physical obstacles, such as the lack of a ramp, become more of an obstacle, but such problems gradually exhaust themselves. At the same time, for hard-of-hearing people, there are much more difficulties within the framework of phenomenological interactions, since many objects of the external world can be perceived only with the help of hearing.

There is a definite need to create a barrier-free environment for the hard of hearing in such a way that the usual environment for healthy people is not changed for the worse. Full–fledged integration of hearing-impaired people into society will allow them to get a job, create families, have children - social activity in general will increase. The most important part of the integration of a person into society is employment. Social employment practices of the hard of hearing are evidence of the real work of the relevant organizations on the problems that the hard of hearing periodically faces. In view of this, successful employment practices perform two main functions, firstly, they increase the subjective social significance of a disabled person, including self-esteem, and also contribute to the formation of a competitive labor market on a par with healthy people.

The problem of employment of disabled people in science is being investigated quite actively: K.M. Grabchuk and B.N. Elizarov considered the fact of employment of disabled people as a complex phenomenon, identified and structured the complex of problems that a disabled person faces when finding employment. Not only physical difficulties, but also a number of legal problems of employment of disabled people were considered by N.R. Babayeva. D.R. Ashuraliev considered all possible ways for the company to refuse to employ a disabled person, as well as ways to overcome such refusals. Analyzing the works of K.M. Grabchuk, it can be concluded that in modern Russia, people with disabilities are the most vulnerable subject of labor relations in the labor market. S.A. Vasin considered the basics of social policy when working with people with disabilities in Russia, as well as the dynamics of such a phenomenon as disability in Russia. T.I. Zaslavskaya considered social employment practices in a general theoretical aspect, and E.V. Chernikova characterized and highlighted the key features of social employment practices for disabled people.

Despite a fairly detailed study of the social practices of employment of disabled people, there is a lack of local sociological research on understanding the essence of internal and external components of social practices within the framework of the stated topic. Consideration of the issue of social practices of employment of disabled people in the city of Barnaul will reveal the local aspect of problems with social practices of employment of disabled people, which will be the novelty of this work.

The theoretical and methodological basis of the work will be presented by the approach of A.A. Dyakov in the study of social practices. Since social practice consists in a combination of internal and external components: the internal component consists in the spiritual efforts of the individual, which form the desire, opportunity, need and implementation of the external form of social practice, that is, direct employment of the hearing impaired.

In addition to theoretical methods, such as document analysis and scientific literature analysis, the following empirical methods were used, namely, secondary analysis of official statistics data and questionnaires (n=150).

People with disabilities are full-fledged participants of social interactions in the life of society, just like ordinary healthy people. One of the most important criteria for a full-fledged life is the employment and work activity of an individual. It is not only about satisfying the material need to earn money, but also in self-realization and permanent necessary communication for the harmonious development of the individual ^[2]. In fact, the practice of employment of disabled people in Russia is being questioned, since the place of a disabled person in the labor market is out of reach of prestigious professions in most cases, and those measures that are carried out by the state are either insufficiently effective or untimely ^[3]. An additional difficulty is the motivation of the employer to hire a person with disabilities, since this requires additional costs and is often unprofitable for the employer.

People with disabilities face a number of difficulties in finding employment, both legal, psychological, and economic ^[4]. On the one hand, a disabled person will have to face certain discrimination when applying for a job, as well as assigning wages, on the other hand, a disabled person will have to find internal motivation to find a job and overcome existing barriers, as well as find the strength to deal with negative social attitudes of both colleagues and superiors towards disabled people ^[5]. Moreover, a disabled person is in unequal conditions with healthy people in terms of education: a number of professions are simply inaccessible to a disabled person, and it is extremely difficult for a hearing-impaired person to get a higher education ^[6].

The state is trying to solve the existing problems in various ways, for example, the establishment of quotas for the employment of disabled people, as a rule, we are talking about 2-4% of jobs that are allocated for the employment of people with disabilities. Job quotas do not give real positive results, because employers are insufficiently stimulated in economic terms, there is no uniform procedure for setting quotas at the regional level. The accessible environment program also helps only partially, since it is not possible to overcome all barriers to a full-fledged life of a disabled person, although the state supports All-Russian societies of disabled people, various non-profit organizations, including the employment center, which helps in finding employment and full-fledged social integration of a disabled person, in particular the hearing impaired ^[7].

Hearing impaired people have a number of certain barriers that are characteristic only for them ^[8]. It should start with communication limitations: hearing loss does not often prevent hearing the interlocutor, you have to lip-read, and the lack of hearing (full or partial) distorts your own speech, since the speaker himself does not hear it. Hearing aids do not always solve the problem completely. As for the barriers of the external environment, the situation is ambiguous: it all depends on the team, where the hearing impaired will get to. One team will help a person to fully socialize and integrate into society, while the other, on the contrary, will disadapt the hearing impaired ^[9]. Given that pathology determines restrictions on the choice of specialty by a disabled person, there is a certain segregation of labor. Places that are accessible to a disabled person are usually low-paid and do not require a highly qualified employee ^[10]. Insufficient financial security of a disabled person also plays a role, since pensions and benefits are usually not enough to ensure a high quality of life.

Social practice should be understood as a set of habitual interactions of disabled people, organizations, groups that are regularly repeated, which ensures a fairly stable functioning of social institutions ^[11]. According to A.A. Dyakov, social practice consists of two components, the external and internal parts of social practice, moreover, external social practice is determined by internal social practice. In other words, the act of employment of a disabled person begins with volitional efforts, and ends with a direct trip to an interview or an employment center ^[12].

The key to successful social practice of employment of disabled people is employment at a quota workplace ^[13]. But the effectiveness of such a tool is extremely low, if in 2008 24179 places for the disabled were installed, in 2013 four times less, only 6149, and in 2020 even less by a thousand, namely 5116 places ^[14]. Given the permanent decrease in the number of quota jobs, the question arises as to the viability and effectiveness of such a state program. According to Rosstat, at the beginning of 2022, namely on January 1, every fourth disabled person worked and was officially employed – 26.33%, while three quarters remain unemployed. The All-Russian Society of the Deaf (VOG) provides real effectiveness in the implementation of successful social employment practices. In particular, there are 861 hearing-impaired people in this organization in the Altai Territory. VOG conducts not only events that promote the integration of a disabled person in society, but also provides real free legal and psychological assistance in finding employment. So VOGUE achieved the cancellation of the order of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation No. 302n, which forbade the hard of hearing to work at machines ^[15].

In the period from 2014 to 2021, there is a decrease in the number of successful social employment practices from 39.1% to 33%, respectively, while there is an increase in the number of employment of disabled people not in their specialty from 46% in 2014 to 60% in 2014 to 60% in 2021. By the way, the situation on this issue is extremely similar in rural and urban areas. The existing measures to promote the employment of disabled people raise some doubts, since more than half are employed not in their specialty, and, as a rule, in low-qualified positions, then the measures that are taken to implement successful social employment practices for the hard of hearing are questionable: if a person with a higher education goes to work as a taxi driver, this is not an effective solving the existing problems ^[16].

Turning to the issue of the distribution of employed disabled people by industry, we find that the distribution is heterogeneous, for example, only 3% occupy managerial positions, 2% in hotel services, and 1% in the financial sector, while 9% work in education and 9% in healthcare. At the same time, one third of disabled people work in agriculture, forestry, where communication is minimized, 12% each work in sales (wholesale and retail trade) and manufacturing enterprises ^[17].

As for the social needs of people with disabilities in matters of employment, these requests do not coincide with the actual state of affairs ^[18]. Analyzing the conducted sociological survey of unemployed disabled people in 2022, in which 30 subjects of the Russian Federation directly participated, we come to the conclusion that the absolute majority of disabled people are really interested in employment – 78%, and every fifth person with disabilities surveyed is interested in vocational training. Only one in twenty would like to open their own business 5%, 22% of respondents would like to work in the real sector of the economy, 18% would like to work at enterprises that are specialized for the work of disabled people, and 55% of respondents did not have any preferences in the field of work at all and would like any job that would be paid in a sufficient amount. In view of the above information, it is necessary to state that the consent of the majority of respondents to such a job is a real indicator of the need to create and form additional organizations for employment and vocational training, retraining of disabled people. As a rule, salary requests from people with disabilities are small, about 30,000 rubles per month on average ^[19].

The research methodology consisted of questionnaires and secondary data analysis. The survey method of questioning made it possible to identify both objective and subjective components of social employment practices of hearing-impaired people. The questions were put together in semantic blocks. The first block determined the objective components of the social employment practices of the hard of hearing, the second block revealed the features of the subjective side of the social employment practices of hard of hearing people. Data collection was carried out both by traditional face-to-face questionnaire and online survey. The study is selective in nature, the volume of the sample totaled 150 respondents. To build a sample population, the principles of non-random, purposeful sampling by the method of typical representatives were used. A mandatory feature of a typical representative is hearing disability.

Adhering to the developed methodology of empirical sociological research on the stated problems, it is advisable to divide the data analysis into two vectors. Firstly, to evaluate respondents' opinions on questions aimed at clarifying the main difficulties and actions taken by a disabled person when looking for a job. Secondly, to identify the respondents' attitude to the actions of the state, public organizations, and the inner circle in relation to employment assistance for the hearing-impaired, as well as the prevalence of acceptance of this assistance among this category of people.

The absolute majority of respondents notes that the main difficulty in finding employment for the hearing impaired is disability restrictions (Figure 1).

Fig. 1. Distribution of respondents' answers to the question "What makes it difficult for the hearing impaired to find employment?" (as a percentage of the number of respondents)

There are a number of professions that are closed for medical reasons for deaf people or professions require additional technical equipment for the hard of hearing to competently perform their job duties. Also, low wages are a significant obstacle to the official employment of the hearing impaired. In addition to deafness, hearing impaired people may develop certain pathologies that also make it difficult to find employment, which was noted by 61% of respondents. For almost half of the respondents, family circumstances act as an obstacle to employment, this may be in the form of overprotection on the part of parents or a ban on the part of a husband/wife, as well as the sincere conviction of the closest relatives that the hearing impaired will bring more benefits while at home. One in four respondents (23%) noted that the lack of vacancies is a significant problem in employment. In fact, it is extremely difficult to find a suitable vacancy, many employers simply refuse to hire a hearing impaired person, knowing about his diagnosis. At the same time, less than one fifth of respondents say that the lack of a proper level of qualifications is a significant problem. At the same time, the majority have the proper level of qualifications that allow them to find a job, as for this part of the respondents, it is difficult for many hearing-impaired people to communicate with healthy people, hence the problem of getting proper education and qualifications. Technical support of the workplace, a certain noise level are extremely important for a disabled person at work, not every employer is ready to invest resources in a comfortable stay of a disabled person at the workplace, therefore 15% of respondents are not satisfied with working conditions, only for every tenth difficulty in communication is a significant problem in employment, for 9% additional special equipment is required, which cannot be provided by the employer, and such costs are unbearable for the hearing impaired, and for every twentieth respondent, the biased attitude of others is an obstacle to employment.

The hearing impaired are persons with disabilities, therefore, when they are employed for the desired position, they will not be able to compete with healthy people without additional skills and certain training. Moreover, these skills for a healthy person can be taken for granted, for example, the removal of a communication or psychological barrier, and for a hearing impaired person this is a serious obstacle to employment. Therefore, three-quarters of respondents noted that when applying for employment, the hearing impaired need additional skills to qualify for the desired position, and 25% of the hearing impaired believe that such skills are not necessary. At the same time, female representatives more often noted the need for additional hearing-impaired skills, since the professions of hearing-impaired women are more related to communication than the professions of men. In addition, 37% of men surveyed believe that additional training is not necessary for employment, which may be explained by the specifics of the work of hard-of-hearing men.

Fig. 2. Distribution of respondents' answers to the question "Have you had personal experience of successful employment practices?" (as a percentage of the number of respondents)

The majority of the hearing-impaired respondents had successful employment practices in one way or another, which indicates the personal determination of a disabled person to find a job, some help from organizations and the state in this area, a total of 71% of respondents had successful employment practices in one way or another. At the same time, every third respondent did not have successful practices, which indicates, perhaps, insufficiently effective state support in this area, low efficiency of the system of quota places for employment of disabled people, as well as insufficient personal interest in the employment of some of the respondents. Some people with disabilities are not afraid of losing benefits and will work to benefit society, while others are afraid of losing existing benefits and may avoid successful employment practices, since there are real cases when it is more profitable to stay on pension than to go to a low-paid job.

Successful employment practices are determined by the actions of the most hard of hearing when looking for a job. Thus, among the respondents surveyed, only one in fifteen has a higher education (10%), and 33% has a secondary vocational education, which indicates a low level of professional competencies, since less than half of the respondents have a higher or secondary vocational education; 39% of respondents have completed special courses, which allowed them to get a job, for example, as makeup artists, manicure masters, hairdressers, etc. 11% of the respondents mastered the profession on their own and found a job. An absolute minority does not have a profession – 8% of respondents. It is worth noting that most of the hearing impaired have somehow received a certain set of knowledge and competencies for successful employment practice in the future. At the same time, the low percentage of higher education among the hard of hearing indicates an insufficient level of professions that can be employed by the hard of hearing in the higher education system, in addition, the process of obtaining education requires considerable effort from the hard of hearing.

The question of the duration of the job search by a hearing-impaired individual is quite important. Thus, almost half of the respondents surveyed did not experience temporary difficulties when looking for a job and found it in one or two weeks, like the average healthy person. At the same time, it is impossible for a hard-of-hearing programmer to find a job in such a short time due to increased qualification requirements, as well as the work of a teacher, at the same time it is much easier to find a job that requires a different qualification (taxi driver, loader). Only one in five respondents faced the problem of finding a job for 1-2 months, which may be due to the lack of a place in the labor market that corresponds to the qualifications of an individual, but in such a period it becomes more realistic for teachers to find a job, in accordance with their requirements and the requirements of the employer, that is, the more highly paid work with a high requirement to the qualification of a person, the longer the hard of hearing has to look for a job in the specialty. One in twenty respondents had been looking for a job for 3-6 months, and 15% of respondents spent from six months to a year looking for a job. This may be influenced by the factor of lack of a job that corresponds to the competencies of the hearing impaired or the desires, preferences of the hearing impaired. As for those respondents who have been looking for work for more than a year, this is most likely social pessimism and an overestimated desire for a suitable place of work, in addition, given such a long period of job search, there was enough money from pensions and benefits to meet basic needs.

Analyzing the above responses of respondents, it should be noted that every third hearing-impaired person interviewed applied to the state employment center to find a suitable place of work, that is, the employment center enjoys a certain confidence among the disabled. It should be noted that the positions of the budget segment were mainly mastered through the employment center, so all teachers found work through the employment center. At the same time, almost every third respondent was looking for a job on their own without anyone's help, given the number of job search sites and services, it is not difficult to do this on their own, especially if a person is really interested in finding a suitable job.

Low-skilled workers, for example, a loader, as well as work in sales and beauty (eyelash extensions), were looking for work independently. Every fifth hearing-impaired person sought help from friends who helped solve the issue of employment, and 23% of respondents tried to open their own business, mainly representatives of the beauty industry, where it is most convenient and profitable to work for themselves, besides there is a constant flow of customers. It should be noted that the most active social position is shown by disabled people who either independently sought work or tried to open their own business.

The final part of the analysis of the data obtained during the survey was information about the desired working conditions, profession, field of activity of the hearing impaired. The majority of respondents wanted to work on a flexible schedule – 65% of respondents, because it is the most convenient and you can have time to do all the planned things, while male and female respondents noted this option with the same frequency, therefore, the flexible schedule option is convenient for all categories of hearing impaired. 15% of respondents noted that they would like to work at home, that is, the real number of hard of hearing people who would not like to contact other people is no more than 15%, among them only 6% of males and 24% of females – almost a quarter of respondents. For 13% of respondents, a shift schedule turns out to be the most convenient, moreover, every third man surveyed agrees to work on such a schedule, as well as every fourth woman, since a shift schedule is quite convenient for a disabled person, because there is enough time to solve personal issues. Psychologically, it is easier for men to work in shifts, this type of work is less psychologically traumatizing for men than for women, and the least popular answer among the surveyed disabled people is full-time, which is due to the peculiarities of health and the lack of full-time work experience for many.

 Despite the lack of full-time work experience among the majority of respondents surveyed, men are more likely to accept such work (Table 1).

Table 1. Distribution of respondents' answers to the question "What schedule would you like to work on?" (as a percentage of the number of respondents)

In order to actively realize themselves in the workplace, hearing impaired people usually need some training.

Psychological preparation is extremely important for every fifth respondent, since many disabled people perceive themselves not like everyone else, they are afraid that they will be biased and want to get rid of this fear. 20% of respondents require the preparation of equipment, including the expensive replacement of a hearing aid with a more modern one for better communication with people around them, given that some of the hearing-impaired studied at a specialized school, they also need legal training so that they know their rights and obligations, as well as the rights and obligations of their colleagues, so that the hearing-impaired do not shifted the extra work. For 22%, physical training is necessary, and 21% of respondents believe that they do not need training at all, and they are ready to start working in their current state. Special attention should be paid to the preparation of hearing-impaired equipment and psychological training, since a disabled person is unlikely to be able to work successfully without one of these parameters.

Almost half of the respondents (43%) are already working at the moment. A quarter is ready to get to work right now, therefore. 21% of respondents are rather ready to start work now, expressing some uncertainty respondents need one of the types of the above preparations. It should be noted that there is now a minority who are not ready to start work – only 8% of respondents, and 3% are rather not ready to start work. It is impossible to exclude the percentage of the hearing impaired who are satisfied with the income from pensions and benefits, therefore, they are not ready to start work for this reason.

There are quite a lot of professions among the hard of hearing that disabled people consider suitable for themselves. The leader is the working specialties, because they have a minimum number of requirements for qualifications and education, and the salary is decent, moreover, men who consider working specialties for themselves are much more than women, which is due to the peculiarities of working specialties, physical activity. Many respondents consider the beauty sphere for themselves, since it is easy to enter the market, work is usually "for themselves" and it does not take a long time to study, besides, special communicative skills of live communication are not required – 40% of girls choose the beauty sphere for themselves, among men such a profession is not in demand due to gender characteristics of upbringing, yes and it is quite difficult to imagine a man in principle in the field of beauty. 15% of respondents consider sales suitable for themselves, perhaps it is necessary to keep consultants in the largest stores who have sign language translation for communication with deaf-mute people, it is worth noting that sales are more popular among the female representatives. Women are somewhat more successful in sales than men. Only 6% of hard-of-hearing men consider sales as a way of earning money. 13% consider for themselves the field of education, where they can help people with disabilities to socialize. The field of education is more popular among female representatives – 16% and only 3% of male representatives. In Russian realities, teaching professions are more popular among women than among men. 8% of respondents see themselves in engineering, design, where, again, there is a minimum of live communication, and a maximum of individual work. Technical specialties turn out to be popular among men, because in the male half of the population there are more people with a technical mindset than with a humanitarian one. For the same reason, accounting is in demand, but among women, as well as science, in particular certain studies. 6% consider the sphere of consumer services for themselves, and 3% would like to realize themselves in culture and creativity – there are a minority of such, since wages are quite low in this area, every twentieth woman agrees to work in this field, since the personal desire for self-development for them is higher than the material benefit, such sentiments among representatives of the male there is no gender observed.

Among the respondents, creativity and personal business as a form of employment are becoming the leading positions. An absolute minority of respondents would like to develop at their place of work, after all, due to the peculiarities of their health, hearing impaired people are more suited to their individual business or creativity than a certain place of work for someone. At the same time, every tenth respondent notes that he would like to learn new things, there are few of them, since studying is communication with healthy people, while not everyone is ready for such communication both psychologically and logopedically, the speech of some of the hard of hearing is incomprehensible.

In general, the situation with the employment practices of the hearing impaired is ambiguous. On the one hand, a significant part of the hearing-impaired respondents in Barnaul are employed, engaged in a certain type of professional activity, socialized, are members of work collectives or have successfully opened their own business and earn money from it. On the other hand, there is a certain percentage of the hearing impaired who have not found a job in accordance with their requirements and are forced to work in low-skilled positions with low wages.

The main problem for the hard of hearing in employment are disability restrictions, it is worth noting that in the modern economic environment, not every employer is ready to take on certain risks by hiring a disabled person, including the hard of hearing, and the hard of hearing themselves do not agree to go to the positions that they are offered in employment centers or in centers assistance to the disabled due to low wages. The problem is that when receiving an official salary, benefits and payments to disabled people can be reduced in such a way that, taking into account wages, the amount that a disabled person receives will be much less than before the hearing impaired person got a job. Despite all the difficulties, including the need to form additional communication skills for the employment of the hard of hearing, many hard of hearing got a job, received a salary, becoming, by all criteria, full-fledged members of society.

The situation with employment is noticeably complicated by the insufficient level of education and professional competencies among the hard of hearing, since the limitations associated with deafness do not allow everyone to get higher or secondary vocational education and apply for a good position. Most of the hearing-impaired people complete special courses and develop in a specifically chosen direction, for example, the beauty industry. In addition, the duration of the job search turned out to be completely dependent on what position a hard-of-hearing applicant is applying for, so it turned out that it was really possible to find a loader job for a hard-of-hearing person in 1-2 weeks, but in most cases, a programmer's job had to be searched for from six months to a year. Despite all the difficulties in finding employment, cases of discrimination, low wages, refusals to hire hard of hearing people find their professional niche, which indicates that the problems of employment of disabled people are complex and include a number of components: economic, psychological, etc., which confirms the hypothesis.

It was not easy for all hard of hearing people to force themselves to solve the issue of employment, that is, internal motivation, personal organization make a huge contribution to the positive success of employment practice. Nevertheless, the practice of job search itself had a positive effect on the emotional state of the hearing impaired. Public organizations that help disabled people, in particular the All-Russian Society of the Deaf (VOG), play a role in successful employment practices: assistance in the selection of vacancies, psychological assistance, legal advice, all this determines in a certain way the success of the social practice of employment of the hearing impaired. The above confirms the second hypothesis.

Those hard of hearing who are not working at the moment are ready to start work in the near future, which indicates that there is an internal need for work. Moreover, the hearing impaired themselves determine for themselves the most suitable areas of employment for working specialties, the sphere of household and technical services, as well as the sphere of beauty. Due to the communication barrier, the above–mentioned number of professions turns out to be the most suitable for a hearing-impaired person. Although the hard of hearing do not deny the possibility of personal career growth, which indicates a sufficient level of ambition and inner energy to develop, despite the difficulties. Of course, in order to increase the number of successful employment practices for the hard of hearing, state support is also needed, namely, providing quota places, organizing retraining in popular specialties, opening enterprises for people with disabilities, additionally motivating employers to hire, and if possible, providing psychological assistance during employment.

Thus, we conducted a sociological study of social employment practices of people with hearing impairment. As the results show, people with hearing impairment are ready to work, to realize themselves, but low wages, the availability of low-skilled jobs, cases of discrimination against the hard of hearing, as well as the abolition of benefits in case of employment, reduce the number of successful employment practices. The success of the employment practice depends both on the individual's personal efforts and on the targeted assistance of the state and public organizations. Special attention should be paid to the internal potential for employment of the hearing impaired, which requires further study and has a certain value for sociological science.