• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

The Aspiescentral monthly poll; March 2014

Are you employed and/or In school?

  • I'm Full-time employed

    Votes: 6 22.2%
  • I'm Part-time employed

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • I'm Full-time employed and I'm attending school

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • I'm Part-time employed and I'm attending school

    Votes: 2 7.4%
  • I volunteer and I'm unemployed otherwise

    Votes: 2 7.4%
  • I volunteer and I'm attending school

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • I don't have/need a job cause I'm attending school

    Votes: 3 11.1%
  • I'm unemployed and live on some form of government assistance

    Votes: 6 22.2%
  • I'm unemployed and don't have any stable income (this also means Freelancing)

    Votes: 4 14.8%
  • I'm retired (or any other way that puts you in the position of not working; trust fund for example)

    Votes: 1 3.7%

  • Total voters
    27
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.

King_Oni

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
So as a first poll, this one is clearly one of the main elephants in the room for many aspies;

Employment.

Reports have shown that there’s only a marginally small group of people with a disability in general have a job. About 2 years ago I contacted a temp agency that specialized in employing people with disabilities and they told me flat out that about 80% of the people on the autism spectrum are not employed. I’d argue that do a bad job themselves, but obviously it’s not that simple to draw a conclusion like that.

Going around on this forum I read plenty of stories of people who don’t have jobs, are on some kind of government assistance, so this would back up this claim that isn’t specific to just the country I’m from, but most likely a global trend, and perhaps with a slight focus on “western” countries (Europe, North America, Austrialia; and perhaps even a few Asian countries who to some extent fall under this same functioning rather than 2nd or 3rd world classification).

But then again I’ve also seen people on this forum who have jobs, those who managed to pull themselves through university with success and make a decent penny.

So I’m curious to see how this translates to the Aspiescentral community.

I’ve come up with 10 answers for this poll which I think are the most suitable responses for the question;

Are you employed and/or in school?

I’ll walk through the answers to try and cover any possible questions (since the thread is not open for replies).

I’d like to clarify that school can be seen with a really broad scope; college, high school, university, even home schooling or learning new skills with e-courses can be seen as this. The only criteria here is that it’s something that takes a hefty amount of your time like any form of studying.


1. Full-time employment; Seems pretty straight-forward. Full-time employment is commonly seen as 40 hours a week (in most places; yet it seems to vary. If you have a job you probably know if you’re full-time or partime. For more information; Full-time - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2. Part-time employment; If you have such a job, you would probably know how many hours you’re scheduled to be there. Part-time in general tends to be less than 30 hours a week, up to 0 hours and an on-call basis. But this might vary depending on where you're from.

3. I'm Full-time employed and I'm attending school; See 1. And the clarification what qualifies as school above.

4. I'm Part-time employed and I'm attending school; See 2. And the clarification what qualifies as school above.

5. I volunteer and I'm unemployed otherwise; seems straight forward.

6. I volunteer and I'm attending school; Also, pretty straight forward

7. I don't have/need a job cause I'm attending school; You’re a student and don’t have a job. Perhaps you don’t even need a job because you’re part of the predominantly younger group of high school and college attending forum members, and therefor might have relatively little expenses and no need for a job. Or your parents pay things for you of course, hehe.

8. I'm unemployed and live on some form of government assistance; This stretches anywhere from disability income to welfare checks and other forms up supplemental income that is, in some way government funded.

9. I'm unemployed and don't have any stable income (this also means Freelancing); No job and no stable income whatsoever. You make money as opportunities arise. And that’s why I clump freelancing here as well, since that’s essentially what you do to make money. Take any job that fits your field of expertise to make a living on a "per case" basis.

10. I'm retired (or any other way that puts you in the position of not working; trust fund for example); seems straight forward. It would basically come down to any other form that puts you in a position of not having to work but still being able to pay bills and have a monthly income of sorts.

If for some reason you think your situation is not listed here you might want to think again and see what resembles it most. I think it would be a really, really, really exceptional situation that's not listed here. But hey... I can't know it all, hehe. I just went with the 10 most viable and common things when it comes to "making a living".

Happy voting

For more information about AC monthly polls; The Aspiescentral monthly Poll | AspiesCentral.com
 
Thank you for this survey. It is very interesting and it reflects strongly the stats in Born on a Blue Day
 
It would be interesting to see whether the success, that some of us have had with our careers, relate directly to our special interest.
 
Just a friendly reminder, the AC monthly poll of March will close in a little over a week.

Anyone who hasn't voted yet and wants to be part of this generic research to map out the AC demographic and such, please take your time to vote.

Thanks!
 
It would be interesting to see whether the success, that some of us have had with our careers, relate directly to our special interest.

My career doesn't. Oddly, after I was diagnosed, I did some research to see what types of careers are best for Aspies like me (visual thinker). Building Maintenance was in the list, which is what I've been doing for a number of years now. I didn't set out to be a maintenance tech, I just started doing it one day as a part time job when I first went to college.
 
I find it interesting what you say Sportster, I am a visual thinker as well and I drifted into construction work. I like to visualize how things work, or is assembled.
 
I am currently working full time as a temp with a pharmaceutical company. My curent work is strictly analytical chemistry, but I think I am more interested in doing formulations or more theoretical work in general. I have found that my image-based thinking and high intuition for how the physical (or chemical) world works makes me really good at innovative reaction-based chemistries like Organic Synthesis. Unfortunately, because of my apparent general lack of motivation and inability to take standardized tests like the GRE, I don't know if I am capable of completing a PhD program to get to a position like that.

Although I never was into analytical chemistry in college, I realize now how good it is for me due to the repetitive nature of the work. I can get routines down and become extremely productive when I hyperfocus on the details of an experiment (which is a good thing for this industry). I also don't have to spend a lot of time talking to management usually, so the work is isolative and wonderful (as compared to when I was younger and worked at a bakery).

This is an interesting survey.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

New Threads

Top Bottom