Job quality for Americans with disabilities

In previous research across a variety of disciplines, job quality is a concept used to assess inequality in employment. Little attention has been paid to examining job quality for workers with disabilities.

This article seeks to expand upon existing measures of employment outcomes for people with disabilities by examining likelihood of having a good quality job compared to workers with no disability.

Using the 2014-2016 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS-ASEC), we estimate the prevalence of good quality jobs for workers with and without disabilities, by full- or part-time employment status. A job of good quality is defined as one that pays more than median wages, offers employer-sponsored health insurance and a retirement savings program.

Workers with a disability were significantly less likely to have a good quality job than those without a disability. Using logistic regression to estimate the odds of having a good job, we find that disability is not predictive of having a good job after controlling for health status.

Job quality indicators may be useful components in tracking employment participation for workers with disabilities. Alternate measures using subjective assessments of job quality should be explored.