Chinese and American employers’ perspectives regarding hiring people with behaviorally driven health conditions: The role of stigma

Abstract

Work opportunities for people with behaviorally driven health conditions such as HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and psychosis are directly impacted by employer perspectives. To investigate this issue, we report findings from a mixed method design involving qualitative interviews followed by a quantitative survey of employers from Chicago (U.S.), Beijing (China), and Hong Kong (China). Findings from qualitative interviews of 100 employers were used to create 27 items measuring employer perspectives (the Employer Perspective Scale: EPS) about hiring people with health conditions. These perspectives reflect reasons for or against discrimination. In the quantitative phase of the study, representative samples of approximately 300 employers per city were administered the EPS in addition to measures of stigma, including attributions about disease onset and offset. The EPS and stigma scales were completed in the context of one of five randomly assigned health conditions. We weighted data with ratios of key demographics between the sample and the corresponding employer population data. Analyses showed that both onset and offset responsibility varied by behaviorally driven condition. Analyses also showed that employer perspectives were more negative for health conditions that are seen as more behaviorally driven, e.g., drug and alcohol abuse. Chicago employers endorsed onset and offset attributions less strongly compared to those in Hong Kong and Beijing. Chicago employers also recognized more benefits of hiring people with various health conditions. The implications of these findings for better understanding stigma and stigma change among employers are considered.© 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Corresponding author: Patrick Corrigan, IIT, 3424 S State Street, Chicago, IL 60616 (312) 567-6751 corrigan@iit.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Many people with a variety of health conditions are not able to get and/or keep good jobs, partly because of the disabilities associated with these conditions and partly because of employer concerns about hiring people from these groups, which are often based on stigma and prejudice. The stigma of health conditions is worsened when employers view the disorder as behaviorally driven; i.e., when the sufferer seems responsible for his or her illness because it was contracted as a result of actions under his or her control. We examined this situation through employers' reports of their opinions about hiring people with five health conditions: bone cancer, HIV/AIDS, mental illness (psychosis), alcohol abuse and...

HIV-related stigma acting as predictors of unemployment of people living with HIV/AIDS

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“…In this study, however, the samples from each of the three cities were relatively small; we did not have enough power for comparative analyses. In addition, the supported employment program, which is likely driving the results from Corrigan et al (2010), for people with mental illness are common in both the USA and Hong Kong (Roush, 2009;Tsang, Fung, Leung, Li, & Cheung, 2010). Similar programs and their effect are not highlighted in research in mainland China, which likely speaks to differences in employment practices among these three locations.…”

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