Disability employment quotas serve as a beneficial form of equality of outcome to
society. Unlike what negative opportunists argue however, such quotas do not
merely favour incompetent candidates over appropriate one’s. In fact, such attitudes
are due to lack of awareness and foster discriminatory attitudes towards people with
disabilities (PWDs). For example, according to one study job applicants with a
disability were perceived more poorly by employers than their able-
bodied/neurotypical peers (Louvet 2007). As a result, many developed nations are
lacking with disability employment with 39.9% in the United States, 45.3% in the
United Kingdom, and 39.8% in Australia respectively (Parker Harris 2012). However,
such perceptions are untrue, in fact PWDs have a lot of untapped potential that has
not been realised (Sonne 2019). According to Deloitte Access Economics, if the
employment gap was reduced by one-third, this would boost Australia’s GDP by $43
billion in a decade, this is a conservative estimate (Deloitte Access Economics
2011). Negative opportunists rightfully endorse legislation concerning disability
discrimination. This serves as a framework for a more equal playing field (Handley,
2001). However, evidence shows that quotas play a more active role as seen in
Japan where quotas are enforced. As a result, disability employment improved with
little impact on businesses (Mori & Sakamoto 2018). Apart from economic benefits
this marks a transition away from the medical model of disability to the social model.
According to this model, disability is socially constructed by societal barriers, such
as, inaccessible venues or negative social attitudes as opposed to viewing PWDs as
broken or needing ‘fixing’ (Lysaght 2012). Therefore, despite negative opportunists
rightfully espousing equality of opportunity for PWDs by law, in practice quotas make
up for the disadvantage many talented PWDs face when attempting to gain
employment thus empowering them to be contributing members to society.
References:
Deloitte Access Economics 2011, The economic benefits of increasing employment
for people with disability, Deloitte Access Economics, Sydney, NSW.
Handley, P 2001, “Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place’: Anti-discrimination Legislation in the Liberal State and the Fate of the Australian Disability Discrimination Act’, Australian journal of political science, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 515-28,
Accessed 17/05/2020, https://doi.org/10.1080/10361140120100695.
Louvet, E 2007, ‘Social judgment toward job applicants with disabilities: Perception of personal qualities and competences’, Rehabilitation Psychology, vol. 52, no. 3, p.
297, Accessed 17/05/2020, DOI: 10.1037/0090-5550.52.3.297.
Lysaght, R 2012, ’Untapped potential: Perspectives on the employment of people with intellectual disability’, Work (Reading, Mass.), vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 409-22,
Accessed 17/05/2020, DOI! 10.3233/\WOR-2012-1318.
Mori, Y & Sakamoto, N 2018, ’Economic consequences of employment quota system for disabled people: Evidence from a regression discontinuity design in Japan’, Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, vol. 48, pp. 1-14, Accessed
18/05/2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjie.2017.02.001.
Parker Harris, S, Owen, R & Gould, R 2012, ’Parity of participation in liberal welfare states: human rights, neoliberalism, disability and employment’, Disability & Society, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 823-36, Accessed 18/05/2020,
https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.679022.
Sargeant, M, Radevich-Katsaroumpa, E & Innesti, A 2018, ‘Disability quotas: Past or future policy?’, Economic and Industrial Democracy, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 404-21,
Accessed 16/05/20, https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0143831X16639655.
Sonne, T 2019, Why people with disabilities are your company’s untapped resource,
World Economic Forum, Accessed 17/05/2020,
<https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/disabilities-autism-in-employment-thorkil
sonne/>.