Employment of People with Disabilities: Twenty-Five Years Back and Ahead

Abstract

By most accounts, Americans with disabilities today have significantly lower rates of employment than their non-disabled peers. Prior studies generally have relied on a "supply-side" approach , focusing on personal characteristics and limitations to predict employment and earnings. These models have not sufficiently analyzed variables related to social context (i.e., interaction of employer demand/supply, the environment, civil rights, and corporate culture) as predictors of employment outcomes for people with disabilities. This Article reviews past research, driven by a medical model approach, and recent research driven by a social-civil rights paradigm. We envision future research that guided by a comprehensive social-civil rights-techno model approach. We describe research efforts to help identify and evaluate future employment models. We end with a blueprint for research and policy challenges and opportunities to be addressed over the coming 25 years, with suggested benchmarks to gauge improvement in the