Document Type

Book

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Description

Legal development in the workplace has created an ever-changing environment for workers, especially workers with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act created requirements for hiring and providing accommodations for employees with disabilities, resulting in fewer people with disabilities being hired because employers viewed these accommodations as too costly. People with disabilities are disproportionately un- and underemployed, so research into how and why these disparities occur is vital. This study’s purpose is to examine factors that influence willingness to provide accommodations. This was achieved by administering a survey to Human Resources employees at various companies. The factors examined include company size, accommodation cost, and disability type. Previous research shows that employers view some types of disabilities as "easier to hire" than others (for example, people with chronic illness are seen as easier to hire than people with intellectual disabilities). Therefore, there were three segments of the survey: one concerning disabilities considered by past research to be "easy to hire," one concerning "moderately difficult to hire" disabilities, and one concerning "difficult to hire" disabilities. We anticipate that the three segments will yield distinct responses, showing that disability type has an impact on willingness to provide accommodations, that all employers will be more willing to provide low-cost accommodations than expensive ones, and that larger companies will be more willing to provide accommodations than smaller ones.

Publication Date

4-2016

Publisher

University of Minnesota, Morris

City

Morris, MN

Keywords

People with disabilities--Employment; People with disabilities--Employment--United States--Evaluation

Primo Type

Conference Proceeding

Employer Willingness to Accommodate for Individuals with Disabilities

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