Introduction:
Social inequality is a common issue today, people face social inequality on a vast array of
factors. these factors include race, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc. but there is one group
that is often underrepresented in a discussion on/of social inequality that inequality being
an individuals disability status
Explain the topic and its importance
Disability is an important marker when discussing social inequality because of how broad
the term is. along with how much disabilities vary between person. Sociologists who study
social inequalities tend to avoid discussing disability in research because it’s a difficult
topic to discuss to the variability in disorders and their effects on the individual affected by
said disability.
Research Questions:
RQ1: How is it that companies can pay those with disabilities significantly less than those
without a disability and how does this allow for the increased economic divide between disabled
individuals and individuals without a diagnosed disability?”
RQ2: “How does the education system deal with disabilities in relation to understanding those
who have disabilities and how does this affect educational outcomes for those with disabilities?”
RQ3: “How does the economic divide between those with disabilities and those without effect
socio-economic standing and overall life outcomes in-terms of gain-full employment, lifeexpectancy and other social measures used to determine success.”
RQ4: “How can a more inclusive view of those with disabilities impact socioeconomic status or
outcomes of those effected by disability ?
Cause affect relation:
All the literature points to a negative relationship between having a disability and socioeconomic factors meaning that individuals that have a diagnosed-disability are at a
significant disadvantage when it comes to those markers. And that policies like the
American disability’s act do little if anything to prevent Discrimination in the workplace.
Define variables independent the is the cause the change and dependent variables are the
changes
Dependent Variable: Deficits in socio-economic status/discrimination based on disability
status
Independent Variable: Disability Status
Hypothesis: I hypothesise that these deficits in socioeconomic status among those
individuals are because of wide-scale systematic institutional racism aginced those with
diagnosed disabilities. this discrimination accounts for the low employment rate of those
with disabilities. the widening class divide between those with disabilities and those without
disabilities.
RQ1: the ability for companies to pay disabled employees less than non-disabled allows for
an increasing divide in income, which then furthers the disabled individual from making a
living wage which leads these individuals to be dependent on others for support preventing
independent living of any kind.
RQ 2: the education system does little if anything to understand those with disabilities, I
believe this is due primarily to the limited amount of public school funding, public schools
don’t have a lot of funding and this causes them to cut corners with education leading to a
lessened quality of education for those with disabilities .
Schools often group the disabled together and try to generalize these individuals. they are
treated differently and labeled allowing for easier discrimination and bullying by the
dominant group (people w/o disabilities)
RQ3: the socio-economic class does a lot to impact life outcomes for those impacted by
disability due to many things. this divide prevents this induvial from accessing many things
that normal people have (i.e. housing, healthcare, acceptance by peers). this divide accounts
for defects in employment between these groups due in part to a lessened quality of
education
Paragraph to what the answer is to research questions
Literature review:
Socio-Economic Divide:
The point that socioeconomic divide impacts life outcomes are supported in academic
literature,
Vocational rehabilitation & laws agianced discrimination and how they affect outcomes
Induvial with disabilities often require extensive support in order to bridge the gap in
employment, however, support is often seldom given or indirectly used as a reason for a
disabled individual to be denied employment.
A study done by Cahit Kaya, Fong Chan et al found that individual’s with Autism
Spectrum Disorder had increased chances of gainful employment when provided with state
VR Services versus those that didn’t receive such services. additional the researchers found
that individuals that received more vocational services, higher levels of education and not
receiving SSDI had a beneficial effect on gainful/competitive employment
The study also found that in contrast to other studies on the topic. that gender was not
associated with competitive employment outcomes, also finding that the number of VR
services that the disabled individual received had more influence on employment outcomes
than demographic variables or SSDI.
This study shows that individuals that receive the proper support that they need to be
successful in the workplace tend to end up having a higher rate of employment than those
who don’t receive such vocational services. leading to a better chance attaining higher
socioeconomic status and better QoL1
Furthermore the American phycological association asserts that socioeconomic status
encompasses not just income but also education attainment and financial security and the
subjective perceptions of social status and class . SES2 can encompass QoL3 attributes as
1
Quality of Life
Socio-economic status
3
Quality of Life
2
well as opportunity’s and privileges afforded to certain members of society based on
economic status,
SES also has an increased effect on those with a diagnosed disability, because those
individuals have a decreased likelihood of entering and maintaining gainful employment
due impart to the disability label and the many false assumptions made by non-disabled
individuals.
The APA goes on to state that “Although the Americans with Disabilities Act assures equal
opportunities in education and employment for people with disabilities and prohibits
discrimination on the basis of disability, people with disabilities remain overrepresented among
America’s poor and undereducated.”.
And then going on to further state that according to US Department of labor statistics
employment policy office. saying the rate of individuals with disabilities entering the workforce
at the age of 16 and over is at 20.1 % as opposed to the percentage of non-disabled individuals
entering the work force at 68.6%.
This goes on to suggest that the reason for the high rate of poverty among the disabled
community is the low percentage of working disabled individuals, these disabilities have an a
direct effect on SES according to the APA . (“In 2015, roughly 38,601,898 people in the United
States had a disability (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015)."
Discussion section:
Personal experiences with Vocational Rehab and workplace discrimination
Since I’m an individual with a diagnosed disability. I have plenty of first-hand experience
with the Vocational rehabilitation system and employers. Even though I was never directly
discriminated agianced while in the workplace. there was plenty of non-verbal/subtle
discrimination going on during the course of my employment.
Firstly, my experiences at Amazon are a good example of the delicate choice that
individuals with disabilities have with telling their employer about said disability, the
reasoning behind hiding your disability from an employer varies but most who chose not to
disclose do so due to the perceived threat of discrimination because of such status. even
though it is aganiced the law to do so.
The Americans with disabilities act were passed in 1990 by the 108 United States Congres
for the purpose of making blatant discrimination aginced those with disabilities illegal.
these acts made many actions an employer could take agianced a disabled employee illegal.
Primarily, these acts prevent employers from terminating employees due to performance
issues that arise from a protected disability. at Amazon, I was a lot slower than the other
associates at packing for the longest while due in part to my disability making tasks that
require ithe use of gross motor functions are more difficult. causing me to take more time
to get the hang of “The Process”4 . causing subsequent disciplinary action that eventually
led to my dismissal from Amazon per the policies that govern such discipline.
There is also a learning deficit component to my specific disability that was never
addressed during the “Learning Curve5”. This caused me to fall behind and faile to miss
productivity goals by the missing rate6.
How this relates to individuals with disabilities is that most workplace policies are made
without consideration to those with disabilities. especially in Amazon's case due to the highstress environment, that isn’t conducive to individuals with documented disabilities.
They ( Amazon ) focus more on physical disabilities rather than subtle disabilities like in
my case causing accommodating my disability to be extremely difficult due to lack of
education on Human Resources part.
The possibility that someone with a disability might try and work for Amazon, that the
policies referenced weren’t updated to reflect the possibility that a disabled individual
might attempt to work there.
I ended up having a change in termination status as a remedy to the whole situation,
Human Resources found that after Consulting with the Legal Team that my Termination
while warranted due to amazons’ internal policies. it violated Amazon’s Internal Ethics
Policy. along with constituting an ADA Violation due to their inability to provide
4
5
The Process is defined as “the Steps and procedures used at Amazon to fulfill a specific job Function”
Learning Curve in the Context of employment at Amazon Fulfillment Refers to the 4 Week Period of on the job
training that all Associates receive upon initial hire , During the Learning Curve. The Associate is slowly adjusted to
rate, the schedule is as follows ( Wk 1 – 50% , wk2 – 75% , wk3 – 85% , wk4 – 100% )
6
Rate is the number of Units the Associate is expected to process in an hour to meet productivity goals and not be
written up
reasonable work accommodation as required by law, which led to my termination being
rescinded, allowing me to go back to Amazon at any point in thefuture without any
priordisciplinaryprior disciplinary actions affecting employment.
But that is the inherent issue with this legislation is that it doesn’t provide a framework for
creating inclusive policies related to individuals with disabilities, the only thing it does is
make it easier to commit employment discrimination on basies of disability.
References
Cahit Kaya, Fong Chan, Phillip Rumrill, Ellie Hartman, Paul Wehman, Kanako Iwanaga, …
Lauren Avellone. (2016). Vocational rehabilitation services and competitive employment for
transition-age youth with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 45(1),
73–83.
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-336, § 2, 104 Stat. 328 (1991)
i