Some Sex-Neutral and Sex-Specific Factors Related to Employment Among Substance Abuse Clients

Abstract

Workfare programs, designed to implement the 1996 federal Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act, raise anew the issue of the employability of substance abusers. The present study explores this issue by examining factors potentially related to the employment status at intake of 1274 men and 804 women admitted for substance abuse treatment to the Center for Comprehensive Health Practice in New York City from July 1995 through December 1997. It was found that men were more likely to be employed than women. For both sexes, employment was positively related to education and stable housing. For men, employment was negatively related to having a mobility impairment; for women, it was negatively related to their number of children and being pregnant. For each sex, variables significantly associated with employment were used to construct a “work barriers” scale. For both sexes, employment was negatively related to number of work barriers. Women generally faced more barriers than men, accounting for their lower employment rate. Public policy and research implications of the findings are discussed.