Unmet Need for Workplace Accommodation

Abstract

We use experimental survey methods in a nationally representative survey to test alternative ways of identifying (1) individuals in the population who would be better able to work if they received workplace accommodation for a health condition; (2) the rate at which these individuals receive workplace accommodation; and (3) the rate at which accommodated workers are still working four years later, compared to similar workers who were not accommodated. We find that question order in disability surveys matters. We present suggestive evidence of priming effects that lead people to understate accommodation when first asked about work-limiting health problems. We also find a sizeable fraction of workers who report they receive a workplace accommodation for a health problem but do not report work limitations per se. Our preferred estimate of the size of the accommodation-sensitive population is 22.8 percent of all working age adults. We find that 47–58 percent of accommodation-sensitive individuals lack accommodation and would benefit from some kind of employer accommodation to either sustain or commence work. Finally, among accommodation-sensitive individuals, workers who were accommodated for a health problem in 2014 were 13.2 percentage points (18.5 percent) more likely to work in 2018 than those who were not accommodated in 2014.

Diversity and Inclusion in the American Legal Profession: Workplace Accommodations for Lawyers with Disabilities and Lawyers Who Identify as LGBTQ+

“…Results from Model 2 in Table 6 show that none of the individual characteristic variables are statistically significant. 10 However, once we include 2 × 2 interactions in Model 3, age becomes statistically significant. Similar to Model 2, the results in Model 3 do not support that any individual characteristics are associated with the likelihood of having accommodations granted other than age.…”

“…Workplace accommodations-individualized adjustments to the way work is performed-are one important way to address these barriers and support the employment of people with disabilities [9]. The receipt of accommodations is positively associated both with being employed, and with higher job performance and satisfaction at work [9,10].…”

“…Lastly, effective access to workplace accommodation is associated with job performance and satisfaction [35,54,56], as well as employment opportunity [9,10]. Even so, one nationwide study of a range of industries suggests that about half (47% to 58%) of individuals who may require accommodations are not provided them [10].…”

“…We hypothesized that individuals with disabilities are more likely to have accommodation requests granted. We predicted that accommodation provision likelihood is further impacted by intersectional identities associated with gender, race, and age [9,10,12,13,22,27,69,70].…”

Disability Inclusive Employment and the Accommodation Principle: Emerging Issues in Research, Policy, and Law

“…At the organizational level, accommodations improve employee productivity, morale, and tenure. If an organization promotes a "culture of inclusion," a climate of flexible and supportive approaches, it furthers effective and innovative accommodations and productive outcomes for all employees and for itself [9,10,[13][14][15], and it enjoys the benefits of attracting and retaining qualified workers [13]. The ripple effect extends even further: promoting economic opportunity for people with disabilities produces a corresponding decrease in their need for federal disability insurance and other governmental support funding, along with a resultant increase in tax revenues.…”