Siddharth K. Upadhyay, assistant professor in the College of Business and Management at the University of Illinois Springfield, is a co-author of a new national research study that finds employees with disabilities perform at levels comparable to non-disabled employees but continue to face lower pay and higher levels of perceived discrimination.

Published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, the study examines workplace experiences of employees with and without disabilities across a wide range of measures, including job demands, job performance, workplace support, psychological well-being and economic outcomes.

The study was conducted in collaboration with Yuyang Zhou, assistant professor of management at Bentley University, and Chockalingam Viswesvaran, professor of psychology at Florida International University.

“Our results show a striking mismatch between perception and evidence,” Upadhyay said. “The data offer little support for the idea that employees with disabilities struggle more to meet job demands than their non-disabled counterparts. While we observed a moderate gap in task performance, it is accompanied by persistent inequities, particularly in pay, accommodation needs and perceived discrimination.”

The conclusions are based on a meta-analysis, a research method that combines results from many existing studies to identify overall trends. The researchers reviewed more than 14,000 academic articles and analyzed 50 studies that directly compared employees with and without disabilities, representing more than 5.7 million workers.

Key findings include:

• Job demands: Employees with disabilities reported similar physical, psychological and time-related job demands as their non-disabled coworkers.
• Job performance: Differences in overall job performance were moderate but do not support the blanket assumption, that employees with disabilities are less productive.
• Workplace support: Levels of support from organizations, supervisors and coworkers were largely comparable, though employees with disabilities reported higher levels of perceived discrimination.
• Psychological factors: Employees with disabilities reported lower psychological well-being, job self-confidence and feelings of autonomy, while job satisfaction and organizational commitment were similar.
• Economic outcomes: Employees with disabilities earned significantly less than non-disabled peers, despite no meaningful differences in job tenure or workers’ compensation claims.

The researchers also found that employees with disabilities reported more unmet accommodation needs, highlighting opportunities for organizations to improve workplace accessibility and inclusion.