Disability discrimination in hiring: A systematic review

Abstract

Despite well-documented disability gaps globally, there is a lack of research using experimental methods to study discrimination in recruitment, which may constitute a major pathway through which the disability employment gap is sustained. In this paper, we review existing evidence on experimental research on disability discrimination in hiring and outline key areas for future research in the field. Our review underlines significant differences in callback rates based on disability status, and variability in effect sizes across different conditions/impairments. We also find that certain conditions/impairments have received more empirical attention than others. Exploring discrimination levels across a wider range of conditions and impairments is necessary to move beyond monolithic understandings of disability as a binary ascriptive status and to discern different causal mechanisms associated with adverse employment outcomes among different impairment/condition groups. We argue that intersectional, theoretically grounded, and cross-national experimental approaches are needed to better understand discrimination in hiring.