 Discrimination towards disabled people seeking employmentJean-François Ravaud, Béatrice Madiot and Isabelle Ville Social Science & Medicine, 1992, vol. 35, issue 8, 951-958 Abstract: This research was undertaken to determine whether or not disabled persons are at a disadvantage when seeking employment. An experimental design--mailing unsolicited job applications to employers--in a natural social setting allowed a study of employer's behaviour under naturalistic conditions. A randomized comparative study was conducted on a representative sample of 2228 branches of French companies, stratified as a function of their size. Four different profiles of applications were constituted by crossing two independent variables: the presence or absence of mention of a physical deficiency (paraplegia, with a wheelchair) in the job application, and high or low level of qualification. Using random sampling, the investigators sent each company an application for a job using one of these four profiles. Two experimental groups of companies were constituted (each of which received an application with either high or low qualification and mention of disability) with two control groups (applications with high/low qualification, without mention of disability). It was found that highly qualified able-bodied applicants were 1.78 times more likely to receive a favourable response than their disabled counterparts, and modestly qualified able-bodied applicants were 3.2 times more likely to receive a positive response. As well, discrimination became more marked as company size increased. In comparison with laboratory experiments, the results of this research permit a more objective assessment of discriminatory behaviour by companies confronted by disabled job applicants, and show a significant amount of discrimination towards individuals with a physical disability. Keywords: disability; job; applicants; social; discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:35:y:1992:i:8:p:951-958 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.