Discrimination Against People With Disabilities in Hiring and Strategies to Reduce It: Evidence From Resumes

ABSTRACT People with disabilities receive fewer callbacks when applying for jobs compared to people without disabilities. To minimize the adverse effects of having a disability in the job application process, some people with disabilities use mitigation strategies during the disclosure of a disability. We test the impact of two often‐used and recommended mitigation strategies in resumes: (1) claiming, that is, emphasizing positive attributes, and (2) downplaying, that is, shifting attention away from the disability towards other characteristics. Across two survey experiments ( n = 445 and n = 1999), we find that employers give socially desirable answers about which candidate they advance. Using a Bayesian Truth Serum—a scoring method that helps lower social desirability—we find that disclosing a disability leads to discrimination in this part of the application process. Mitigation strategies are ineffective or backfire, depending on the wording. In a field experiment with 1509 applications, we verify these results: Employers discriminate against people with disabilities. The claiming mitigation strategy, in which people emphasize the positive attributes of disabilities, has negative effects. These findings show that people who disclose their disabilities in their resumes are discriminated against, and that mitigation strategies do not reduce such discrimination; some even increase it.