Page 261 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

COLELLA AND STONE
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psychological aspects of disability discrimination in the workplace. The
purpose of this chapter is to help guide that research.
We begin by briefly describing research that has been done examining
disability discrimination. We divide this research into nonpsychological
research and, the subject of this chapter, psychologically based research.
As our brief review shows, this literature is somewhat scattered and incon­
clusive. We then move to a discussion of issues that need to be addressed
before we can have a better understanding of the psychological processes
underlying discrimination against people with disabilities.
LITERATURE REVIEW

The purpose of this literature review is to give the reader an understanding
of the current state and findings of disability employment discrimination
research, rather than to provide a comprehensive review of all studies. We
devote the most attention to the empirical psychologically based research
because it serves as the background to our suggestions for where this area
of research needs to go in the future to advance our understanding of
the psychological bases of workplace discrimination against people with
disabilities.

Nonpsychological Research

Labor economists, rehabilitation psychologists, and general surveys of
managers and the public have all examined the issue of disability treatment
in the workplace. Labor statistics indicate that people with disabilities are
more likely to be unemployed and paid less than people who do not have
disabilities. Recent data from the Harris Poll organization (Taylor, 2000)
indicated that only 31% of all people with disabilities are employed full or
part time, and 56% of people with disabilities who report that they are able
to work, do so. This is compared to 81% of the total U.S. population. One
should not interpret these results as indicating that persons with disabili­
ties do not want to work. A recent Harris Poll (Taylor, 1998) reported that
72% of people with disabilities who were not working wanted to work.
Current census data present very similar results (McNeil, 2000). Also, re­
cent census reports indicate that people with disabilities earn less ($33,109
annually in 2000) compared to individuals without disabilities ($43,269;
U.S. Census Bureau, 2002). Indeed, these numbers have changed little since
the ADA was enacted in 1992 (see National Council on Disability, 2002),
indicating that employment discrimination exists. Furthermore, the ex­
tent to which employment and wage differentials exist varies by disability