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A large-scale survey of people with physical disabilities found that a large majority were able to return to work and almost half of them retained their jobs for four years or longer. This was one of several important findings that highlight the impact workplace accommodations can have for employees with disabilities, as well as the changes in societal attitudes that resulted from the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, disability experts say. The employment survey of 2,000 people with physical disabilities across the United States was conducted and analyzed by researchers at the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research (CROR) at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. The six-year Rehabilitation Research and Training Center for People with Physical Disabilities was funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), an arm of the federal government.
This project was one of the first to look at employment for people with disabilities beyond the typical 90-day threshold tracked by state vocational rehabilitation departments. Of the 1,500 individuals in the sample who reported working after disability, 61% had stayed at their longest held job for four years or more. Further, people with physical disabilities who reported having opportunities for career advancement or receiving a job accommodation were more likely to stay at their jobs. “There is still a lot of stigma but I think we’ve made real advances over the past few decades in large part thanks to the ADA, which has made disability accommodations a civil right rather than a special privilege,” says CROR Director Allen Heinemann, PhD. “Often when people do disclose a disability, they find support from their co-workers and supervisors, and finding solutions to the barriers they encounter are usually low-cost or no-cost solutions.”
Not all the news was good. People who were older and those who were not financially secure were less likely to return to work. Those who reported having serious trouble paying their bills on time were 26% less likely to be working after a disability. Another factor played an even larger role: use of an assistive mobility device. People who used a wheelchair were 49% less likely to work after acquiring a disability, while people who used canes, walkers or crutches were 25% less likely to return to employment. “People who reported using assistive mobility devices were significantly less likely to work after the onset of a disability,” says CROR Research Assistant Emily Dinelli, who worked on the project. “We need to think critically about how we create inclusive environments for people who use devices and look at how accommodating the workspaces are. It’s important to include these people and create an environment that is easy to get around in.”
Just as important as physical barriers were attitudinal ones, the researchers found. People who reported negative attitudes among supervisors were 11% less likely to be employed in their longest held job in the years after they acquired a disability. Demographic factors such as gender and race also played a role. Being female was associated with a 16% decrease in employment at a longest held job while identifying as Black was correlated with a 15% decrease.
Yet there also was evidence that real positive changes have occurred in U.S. workplaces. People with the highest likelihood of working after a disability reported having access to a helpful human resources person and receiving accommodations. Eighty percent of those surveyed reported their company provided at least one formal accommodation, the most common of which were modifying work schedules, allowing an exception to a company rule, and allowing sitting and standing work position changes. Receiving an accommodation was highly correlated with job satisfaction and job retention, the researchers found. “I’m excited we are providing evidence and data that supports the use of job accommodations for people who are working with a disability,” says CROR Research Manager Deborah Crown. “Accommodations improve job satisfaction and hopefully that improves tenure.”
Future projects in employment research should focus on how to remove both environmental and attitudinal barriers that people with disabilities face when they want to find work or return to their jobs, the CROR researchers say. The goal for the researchers now is to spread the word about their findings. Business disability inclusion groups such as DisabilityIN, which promotes hiring of people with disabilities, will likely be interested, Heinemann says. But reaching the wider audience of people who someday will acquire a disability while employed will be a bigger task since this group is constantly growing and changing. “We need to get the word out that when people run into barriers, there are solutions,” Heinemann says. “There are people who have figured out how to work after a disability, and here are some lessons that could apply to you.”