Emotional labour

Tribute

Ahead of this blog post, the Disability Matters team and the Disability Innovation Institute at UNSW (DIIU) wish to acknowledge the contribution of Dr Ellen Fraser-Barbour to the theme of this blog post.

In the 2024 Disability Matters DIIU symposium, Ellen noted that “The demands of emotional labour are significant for lived experience researchers”. These words resonated strongly with the 2024 audience and became the focus of the 2026 symposium, where the theme was further developed by the presenters Ebe Ganon-Davey and Ricky Kremer.

It is with great sadness that the DIIU acknowledges Ellen’s sudden death as the result of an accident earlier this year. However, we acknowledge Ellen’s ongoing impact in dialogues around disability, emotional labour and research.

We dedicate this blog post to Ellen in gratitude to her contribution.

Emotional Labour

An Overview

At the 2024 Disability Matters Online Symposium on inclusive research, the topic of emotional labour was introduced. In the 2026 Disability Matters Online Symposium, this topic was revisited as the focus of the event. 

At the 2024 Symposium, Dr Ellen Fraser-Barbour (DIIU, 2024) said: 

“The demands of emotional labour are significant for lived experience researchers. We constantly navigate microaggressions, inaccessible environments, and the pressure to conform to ableist norms. This work is not just emotionally taxing; it can lead to burnout, as we are unable to disengage from the issues we study and advocate for. Burnout in this context goes beyond fatigue—it’s the overwhelming sense of hopelessness that comes from constantly battling microaggressions and ableist structures. The personal is political for lived experience researchers, and this means we cannot simply step away from the issues we face.”

Research supports Fraser-Barbour’s (DIIU, 2024) words, showing that many workplaces have an ableist nature (Wilton, 2008). Navigating these ableist spaces requires emotional effort and can create emotional dissonance (Kruml & Geddes, 2000) which is when the emotion shown is in conflict with the true inner emotion. 

Recognising these experiences is important given significant disparities in employment experiences of people with disability. In Australia 18% of the population has a disability (AIHW, 2024a). Data collected in 2024 demonstrated that 10% of people with disability were unemployed, compared to 4.6% of people without disability (AIHW, 2024a). Furthermore, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2024) showed that for Autistic people, the unemployment rate was around 18%, whereas Amaze (an Australian Autism advocacy organisation) estimated that this rate could be much higher (Amaze, n.d.). 

Job satisfaction and job security are consistently poorer for people with disability, alongside higher rates of underemployment and discrimination (AIHW, 2024b).  Understanding and addressing the issue of emotional labour for people with disability is a crucial element of addressing these inequities.

The Disability Matters Symposium

At the 2026 Symposium, presenters Ricky Kremer and Ebe Ganon-Davey spoke about their experiences of emotional labour within the tertiary sector, and addressed some inequities. 

Ricky Kremer

Ricky is a Lived Inclusion Lead at the National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health, and he spoke about emotional labour from the perspective of being on the leadership team at the Centre.

He said, “In the beginning, some leadership meetings I attended were not accessible. 
For example, they would go for two hours with no breaks and had people speaking too fast and in jargon. However, after giving ongoing feedback which they took on well, I continue to see improvements and they are now a lot more accessible.” 

When preparing for meetings, Ricky gave some practical advice.

• Give people with disability some time to prepare for meetings and to understand information. 
• Be open to adjustments and know about my support needs as this allows me to do my best work.
• Make sure it's in simple language before asking people with disability to read or do something.
• And have enough breaks during meetings and check in to see how I'm going.

Ricky also spoke about the importance of mentoring and “showing what good leadership looks like.” Ricky said that good leadership includes people with disability in the process of recruitment, and good leadership finds out the tasks “people with disability enjoy doing so work is meaningful and people know what to expect.”

Ebe Ganon-Davey

Ebe Ganon-Davey spoke from the perspective of being a PhD student, chairing the board of a national Disability Representative Organisation (DRO), and as a disability advocate.

Ebe identifies emotional labour in a professional context as when a person with disability is managing an emotional interaction or considering social factors that wouldn’t be relevant to a non-disabled person in their job, or where the volume or stakes of this labour are greater for a person with disability. 

Ebe said, “In my own experiences, there are some kind of intersecting nuances in the way that I experience emotional labour. Firstly as a neurodivergent person…emotional labour for me is not just about managing the cognitive and emotional aspects of interacting with non-disabled people. It's also about often needing to do this across the boundary of neurotypes regardless of disability or identity. 
My communication and my behaviour, the way that I express emotion, and the way that I think often differs from those who don't share my neurotype as an autistic person and person with ADHD.”

Whether choosing to perform or avoid emotional labour, Ebe says, “It requires making my own capacity and my own needs smaller. And the development of a response requires a lot of time that I'm not paid for.”

Ebe asks: “What are the costs of draining the kind of energy and our capacity as disabled people [through emotional labour]? And what is the potential if we unlocked that energy and stopped needing to perform that labour to the kind of research and the kind of contributions we'd be making to academia?”

Conclusion

Ricky and Ebe clearly showed that emotional labour is present in work and study situations, and that this labour is an additional demand. 

Recognising when emotional labour is occurring is important. Ricky identified emotional labour in instances of “making a decision about something” and Ebe reminded us that emotional labour is “bonus work that happens because of identity, or happens because of access needs.” 

Ebe said, “I can be disabled and effective, and require support and be neurodivergent all at the same time... And if we can just trust ourselves and trust others that the support we ask for is the support that we need, we'd be in a much better place. And we'd be massively reducing the kind of emotional labour that disabled people need to be performing.” 

As allies in the workplace, we can check in on how others are doing, and have concrete strategies to lessen the load or offer proactive support.

To find out more of what Ricky and Ebe spoke about, you can access the recording and the transcript here.

References

Amaze, (n.d.). Autism and employment in Australia. Accessed 20/1/2026, https://www.amaze.org.au/creating-change/research/employment/

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2024). Autism in Australia, 2022. ABS. https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/autism-australia-2022.

Australian Government, (2026), Australian Government Style Manual: Disability and Neurodiversity. Accessed 13/1/2026, https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/accessible-and-inclusive-content/inclusive-language/disability-and-neurodiversity 

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2024a). People with disability in Australia. Accessed 19/1/2026, https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/people-with-disability-in-australia/contents/summary 

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2024b) People with disability in Australia. Accessed 1 April 2026, doi:10.25816/5ec5be4ced179.DIIU, (2024). 

Disability Matters Online Symposium 2024. Accessed 27/1/2026, https://www.disabilityinnovation.unsw.edu.au/disability-matters-online-symposium-2024  

Kruml, S., & Geddes, D. (2000). Exploring the dimensions of emotional labour: The heart of Hochschild's work. Management Communication Quarterly, 14(1), 8-49.  

Wilton, R. (2008). Workers with disabilities and the challenges of emotional labour. Disability and Society, 23(4), 361-373.