Disability discrimination in hiring: A systematic review

Despite well-documented disability differentials in employment rates globally, there is only limited research using experimental methods to study discrimination in recruitment, which may constitute a key pathway through which the disability employment gap is sustained. In this systematic review, we review 69 existing experimental research studies on disability discrimination in hiring, published between June 1972 and January 2025, and outline key areas for future research in the field. Our review underlines significant differences in callback rates as well as variability in effect sizes across applicant and occupational characteristics. We also find that certain chronic health conditions and impairments have received more empirical attention than others. Exploring discrimination levels across a wider range of chronic conditions and impairments is necessary to move beyond monolithic understandings of disability as a binary ascriptive status and to discern different causal mechanisms associated with adverse employment outcomes among different subgroups. We argue that intersectional, theoretically grounded, and cross-national experimental approaches are needed to better understand and address disability discrimination in hiring.