Workplace disability and job satisfaction in Britain: A co-worker test?

Abstract

The article examines the link between workplace disability (WD) and workplace job satisfaction (JS) using data from WERS2011. Controlling for a rich set of workplace characteristics including organisational culture, the study finds a significant negative relationship between JS and the share of disabled respondents within workplaces. Notably, Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR)-based analysis distinguishing between disabled and non-disabled respondents reveals that the negative relationship found is specific to non-disabled respondents. Moreover, disability equality policies are found to be significantly positively related with disabled respondents’ JS while they are negatively related with the JS of their non-disabled counterparts. The article ponders if there is a co-worker aspect to the WD–JS link and whether HR policies may need to take heed of co-worker dynamics in this respect.