ABSTRACT
There is very little research relating to the employment of older people with mental handicap, presumably because very few of the group have jobs. Indeed, it is illuminating to note that Chinn, Drew and Logan (1979) in their life-cycle approach to mental retardation, make no reference to either work on retirement in their chapter in “The Aged Retarded”. The focus is rather on intellectual decline and lack of family contact. Also, much information on employment relates to people whose level of handicap is only mild. Thus Baller (1936), in a period of severe economic depression, found 20 per cent of the handicapped individuals to be gainfully employed, compared with 50 per cent of the non-handicapped control group. Such figures obviously bear little relation to people whose handicap is severe.
