Identifying with Disability: Benefit or Barrier? A Three-Part Study Examining the Impact of Disability on Over-Qualification, Access to Work-Related Training, and Inclusion in University Classrooms

Despite Canada's commitment against discrimination, workers with disabilities face barriers to labour market participation. Relying on Human Capital Theory, Signaling Theory, and Stigma theory, this three-part study examines impact of disability status in three distinct contexts. Study 1 explores the relationship between disability status and job-qualification mismatches in a representative sample of 7172 respondents from Statistics Canada's General Social Survey (GSS) data bases. Disability status is negatively corelated with horizontal job education match, and positively corelated with perceptions of under-qualification. Study 2 explores the relationship between disability status and work-related training using a series of logistic regressions, and a GSS sample of n =7, 154. Disability status is negatively corelated with the probability of receiving employer-sponsored training. Study 3 tests the impact of disclosing disability related information university project team inclusion decisions. Using a sample of 378 TMU students, Study 3 found that signaling diabetes had no main effect on inclusion ratings, but diabetes-related stigma negatively predicted the inclusion of those with diabetes. Taken together, these studies failed to prove disability status as a consistent disadvantage. Instead, unanticipated results suggest a more complex relationship between disability status and labour market outcomes. I discuss the implications of these findings and suggest directions for future research.