Reconstructing Employment Access for Persons with Disabilities

Although Law Number 8 of 2016 has been enacted as a guarantee of employment rights for persons with disabilities, there are indications of problems in the field. In East Java Province, persons with disabilities still experience limited access to formal employment. In fact, any progressive regulation, if not balanced with practice, will widen inequality. As a consequence, the cycle of poverty will continue among persons with disabilities. This study aims to analyze the dialectic between disability employment regulations and their implementation which is reconstructed with a policy approach from the perspective of uṣūl al-fiqh and maqāṣid asy-syarī’ah. This study combines quantitative and qualitative data, focusing on four districts in East Java Province. The findings in this study are two. First, the implementation of affirmative employment policies is still constrained by weak supervision, corporate resistance, and the dominance of economic considerations. Second, institutional mechanisms, especially the Disability Service Unit (ULD), have not functioned optimally due to limited capacity and a lack of cross-sector integration. Although normatively the policy has been in line with the principles of ḥifẓ an-nafs, ḥifẓ al-māl, and al-'adl, its implementation has not reached the optimal level of maṣlaḥah. This research contributes by integrating institutional analysis and the perspective of maqāṣid asy-syarī’ah to encourage an inclusive and equitable employment system for persons with disabilities.

Dialectic · Dominance (genetics) · Perspective (graphical) · Poverty · Qualitative research · Unit (ring theory) · Employee Performance and Management · Linguistic, Cultural, and Literary Studies · Local Governance and Development