IDENTIFIERS Employees with Disabilities

This report examines the use of self-employment as a vocational rehabilitation option in rural areas. Self-employment is one of the fastest growing employment opportunities, as evidenced by the approximately 15.6 million people who reported being self-employed in 1990. Data from the 1980s comparing employment patterns in rural and urban areas indicate that participation in the labor force was lower in the rural nonfarm population than in either farm or urban populations; service-related jobs accounted for over half of all rural employment; rates of self-employment were significantly higher in rural than in urban areas; a greater proportion of people who reported a work disability lived in nonmetropolitan areas; people with disabilities were more likely to be unemployed; and disabled workers generally earned less than their counterparts with no disability. Self-employment is a legitimat