Perceptions and Bias of Small Business Leaders in Employing People with Different Types of Disabilities.

PURPOSE: Despite existing employment-related legislation and governmental programs, people with disabilities continue to face significant barriers to competitive employment. These obstacles are partially due to biases among employers regarding the contributions of people with disabilities and perceptions about accommodation costs, which can affect their hiring decisions. Existing research on employment barriers and facilitators often treats people with disabilities homogenously and focuses mainly on large companies. This study helps to fill these gaps by exploring the motivations and challenges small employers face when hiring people with disabilities and how their attitudes and willingness to hire vary based on disability type. METHODS: We surveyed business owners and decision-makers at companies with fewer than 100 employees resulting in a sample of 393 company respondents. Through descriptive analyses, we examined variations in respondents' willingness to hire and the prevailing attitudes among the company leaders sampled. We explored how employer attitudes can either hinder or support the hiring of people with disabilities. We conducted multivariate analysis to explore the connections among attitudinal barriers, facilitators, and willingness to hire individuals with various disabilities, reflecting disability's heterogeneous nature. RESULTS: Our findings reveal that, in terms of hiring people with disabilities, the most important concerns among employers are: inability to discipline, being unfamiliar with how to hire and accommodate, and uncertainty over accommodation costs. These concerns do not differ between employers covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and non-covered employers. However, ADA-coverage may make a difference as ADA-covered employers are more likely to say they would hire an applicant with a disability. We find that for small companies (less than 15 employees), the positive effect of the facilitators (positive perceptions about workers with disabilities) almost completely offsets the negative effect of the barriers. However, for the larger companies, the marginal effect for an additional barrier is significantly more predictive than for an additional facilitator. Among the disabilities we examined, employers are least likely to hire someone with blindness, followed by mental health disabilities, intellectual disabilities, deafness, and physical disabilities, underscoring that employers do not view all types of disabilities as equally desirable at work. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding small employers' underlying concerns and effectively addressing those factors is crucial for developing effective intervention strategies to encourage small employers to hire and retain people with different disabilities. Our results suggest greater openness among ADA-covered employers to hiring people with disabilities, but the perceived barriers indicate a need for ongoing information on effective intervention strategies to increase disability hiring among all small employers.

Disability Inclusion in Corporate Supplier Diversity Initiatives.

PURPOSE: Since the 1960s, federal and state governments and private-sector companies have used supplier diversity initiatives to ensure their supply chains include businesses owned by traditionally economically disadvantaged or underrepresented groups. Originally concentrated on racial and ethnic minority groups, programs have expanded to include businesses owned by women, veterans, LGBTQ+ individuals, and, in some cases, people with disabilities. This study investigates the extent to which disability is included in supplier diversity initiatives of Fortune 500 companies. METHODS: This paper uses a novel data set created by the authors with information on supplier diversity initiatives and Disability, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements in Fortune 500 companies extracted from public sources. This information is combined with data from Compustat, a corporate financial database published by Standard and Poor's and additional variables from other sources. RESULTS: 75% of the Fortune 500 companies have supplier diversity programs that express a commitment to diversity yet only 49% of those with such programs include disability-owned businesses (38% of all Fortune 500 companies). Among the largest 100 companies, 89% had supplier diversity programs that included disability, almost 6 times the rate Ball et al. reported in 2005. This study finds disability inclusion varies significantly by company size, industry, and whether the company is a government contractor. CONCLUSION: Despite the growth in disability inclusion, the absence of disability as a diversity category in regulations mandating supplier diversity initiatives for government contractors impacts disability inclusion. If we want to align our supplier diversity programs with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the first step is to address the issue in the Small Business Administration and federal contracting requirements.

Who Requests and Receives Workplace Accommodations? An Intersectional Analysis.

PURPOSE: This study investigates who requests workplace accommodations and who is more likely to have requests granted. We investigate the role of demographic characteristics and their intersection, including disability, gender, race/ethnicity, and age. We also consider the role of other personal and job-related factors. METHODS: We use the data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) 2021 Disability Supplement to estimate the odds ratio of having requested workplace accommodations and having such request granted during the COVID-19 pandemic when the survey was conducted. In supplementary analyses, we explore the relationship between remote work and flexible scheduling and workplace accommodations, as well as possible trends using CPS 2019 Disability Supplement. RESULTS: Our results indicate that Hispanics with disabilities are more likely than others to request workplace accommodations, but they are substantially less likely to be granted accommodations. Consistent with other studies, our paper also finds that people with disabilities, women, and older people are more likely to request accommodations than their respective counterparts. Other personal and job-related factors such as higher education, parenthood, being single, being a citizen, and working in management-related occupations are associated with higher likelihood of requesting workplace accommodations compared to their counterparts, while receiving accommodations is largely explained by occupational differences. CONCLUSION: Our findings show that there are still disparities in the rates of workplace accommodation requests and provision for multiply marginalized groups, and as such, taking into account intersectional differences in addition and in relation to disability is important.

Estimating Households' Expenditures on Disability in Africa: The Uses and Limitations of the Standard of Living Method.

People with disabilities face extra costs of living to participate in the social and economic lives of their communities on an equal basis with people without disabilities. If these extra costs are not accounted for, then their economic wellbeing will be overestimated. The Standard of Living (SOL) method is a way of generating these estimates and is thus useful for determining the economic impact of those costs in the current environment. However, previous studies have used different indicators for disability and different measures of the standard of living, so it is hard to compare estimates across different countries. This study applies a consistent set of indicators across seven African countries to produce comparable estimates. Our estimates of the extra costs of living in these lower-income countries are much lower than the results produced for higher-income countries in prior work. We argue that this finding highlights the limitations of the SOL method as a useful source of information for developing inclusive systems of social protection in lower-income countries because it captures what households spend but not what the person with a disability needs to fully participate in the social and economic lives of their community. In lower-income countries, people with disabilities are likely to have fewer opportunities to spend on needed items thus resulting in substantial unmet need for disability-related goods and services. Failing to account for these unmet needs can lead to inadequate systems of social protection if they are based solely on SOL estimates.

Development of a community-wide cardiovascular risk reduction assessment tool for small rural employers in upstate New York.

Employers are implementing workplace health promotion programs that address modifiable health risk factors such as overweight and obesity, smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, physical inactivity, poor diet, and high stress. Research with large employers has found that these programs can improve workers' health and decrease the costs associated with medical care, absenteeism, and presenteeism. Despite their promise, health promotion programs are not widely embraced by small businesses, especially those in rural communities. This article reviews the barriers encountered by small and rural businesses in implementing health promotion programs. We describe an approach developed in cooperation with the New York State Department of Health's Healthy Heart Program and the Cayuga Community Health Network to engage small businesses in health promotion. We review the development and implementation of an assessment tool created to evaluate current workplace health promotion programs, policies, and practices targeting cardiovascular disease among small, rural employers in upstate New York. Potential benefits of the assessment tool are discussed, and the instrument is made available for the public.

Premium increases in state health insurance programs: lessons from a case study of the Massachusetts Medicaid buy-in program.

In March 2003, Massachusetts increased the premiums it charges to most enrollees in its CommonHealth-Working (CH-W) program. This study evaluates the impact of the premium change on disenrollment using a comparison group methodology. The findings indicate that the premium change had only a small, but statistically significant impact on program exits. The CH-W experience differs from other state programs that saw substantial enrollment declines in response to new or increased premiums. This is likely due to factors that make CH-W different from other programs, key of which are administrative procedures intended to minimize disenrollment due to premium nonpayment.