Barriers to Employment Among Women With Complex Episodic Disabilities

The expansion of the global economy, characterized by shifts in the organization of labor markets, has increased demands for flexible employment. Changes from standard, permanent employment relationships to nonstandard or "precarious" work arrangements have become the normative template in many work settings. Although significant scholarship explores precarious employment among the nondisabled, little work examines precarious work among persons with disabilities, especially women. Drawing on a secondary analysis of a series of longitudinal, semistructured interviews, this article explores the personal and structural barriers to employment that five women with complex episodic disabilities identify as welfare recipients within the context of precarious employment. Implications for practice relationships and policy that consider an alternative understanding of (dis) ability and employability as a contingent, fluid embodiment are considered.