Employment status of the members of Tehran deaf community

Regarding the importance of employment in social and emotional status of individuals, it would be important for the deaf. The purpose of the present study was to assess the employment status of the members of Tehran deaf community. This descriptive study was performed on all members of Tehran deaf community. A researchers-made questionnaire which had three parts (demographic information, employment status of the deaf members and their attitudes regarding employment) was used in this study. The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive methods. Majority of deaf community members were adult (ages ranging between 18 and 30). Sixty-eight of them (52.5%) were female and 53 (47.5%) were male, from our participants, 56.2% were unemployed and 43.8% were employed. Main problems were: having no access to facilities regarding their disability (14.5%), communication problems (9.4%), lower salaries because of their disability (12.4%), being far from the working place (15.4%), disproportion of working environment to their disability (11.4%), maltreatment of their coworkers (13.2%), maltreatment of their employer (12.5%) and discrimination because of their disability (11.2%), the attitudes of the deaf members were positive regarding the employment in all areas: 90% of them considered it as an essential part of life versus 10% of them mentioned not very important issue. Our findings showed that most of the deaf were supported by their family members, but not by the social facilities or their past education. The social policies should be reformed to support employment of the deaf.