State of the Science

Helping shape United States' labor and employment policy isn't something most people can imagine doing.

But, for many ILR Employment and Disability Institute associates and ILR faculty, it's part of the job.

Their new workplace policy and practice research to promote inclusion of people with disabilities will be presented to policymakers, practitioners and others today and Wednesday at the "Innovative Research on Employment Practices: Improving Employment for People with Disabilities" State of the Science Conference in Arlington, Va.

The conference is sponsored by the institute and the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NDIRR). The Employment and Disability Institute is a federally funded Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Employer Practices Related to Employment Outcomes Among Individuals with Disabilities.  

Free and open to the public, the conference can be followed on Twitter by following the #DisabilityScience hashtag.

Patricia Shiu, director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs in the U.S. Department of Labor, will be the keynote speaker today.

She will discuss the recent Rehabilitation Act Section 503 regulations to increase employment outcomes for people with disabilities among employers who are federal subcontractors.

ILR and Employment and Disability Institute-led sessions include these topics and presenters:

  • Best practices for employers for recruiting, retaining, and advancing people with disabilities, Linda Barrington, executive director of ILR's Institute for Compensation Studies, and ILR Associate Dean Susanne Bruyère, institute director.
  • Employer surveys addressing the effectiveness and degree of implementation of disability inclusion practices, as well as perceptions of the employability of people with disabilities, authored by Bill Erickson, institute researcher, and Sarah von Schrader, assistant director of research for the institute.
  • Factors that contribute to or detract from the engagement of people with disabilities in the workplace, Professors Lisa Nishi and Bruyère.
  • Job characteristics that tend to be associated with people with disabilities versus non-disabled employees, Professor Kevin Hallock.
  • Investigating the discrepancy in compensation levels between workers with disabilities and non-disabled workers, Hallock.
  • A study of the impact of employer-provided health care on retention of qualified employees with disabilities, Arun Karpur of the institute.
  • Trends in discrimination charges leveled against employers, von Schrader and Zafar Nazarov.

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