Federal employees with disabilities with regards to occupation, race, and gender.

Introduction

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 was designed to protect disabled persons from discrimination on the basis of disabilities, including hearing, seeing, speaking, breathing, learning, walking, mental or emotional impairments, by private or public employers. In other words, the ADA sought to prevent persons with disabilities from discrimination in employment practices and improve their employment conditions and opportunities. One of the key issues in Title I of the ADA is that public or private employers should provide "reasonable accommodations" in employment practices for employees and applicants with disabilities. That is, public accommodations and services should be accessible to persons with disabilities. To carry out the essential function of the job, disabled individuals should be provided reasonable accommodations, including a work schedule change, a job restructuring, the provision of an auxiliary aid, or physical modification to the workforce. (1) Accommodating workers, applicants, or citizens with disabilities by modifying public facilities and restructuring jobs can cause a financial burden for public or private employers, even though a severe financial burden can exempt an employer from the requirement to offer a reasonable accommodation. (2)

The literature on the employment of persons with disabilities in the federal, state and local governments focuses on the preparation of the ADA, the implementation of the ADA, or the impacts of the ADA on public personnel management practices. This study instead investigates persons with disabilities in the federal service with regard to occupational structure, race and gender. More specifically, this study examines the distribution of federal employees with disabilities with regard to occupation, race, gender and department through an analysis of the recent demographic data on fulltime disabled employees in the federal civil service. Theoretically, this study is important in terms of providing possible explanations for the relationship between occupation, race, ethnicity, or gender and the employment of disabled individuals in the public sector.

Theory and Hypothesis on the Employment of Persons with Disabilities

Studies on the employment of disabled individuals in the public sector indicate that the impacts of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 are not significant enough to affect public personnel management practices due to vague regulations, insufficient budget allocations or poor preparedness. In the national survey of municipal government chief administrative officers regarding reasonable accommodations for employees or job applicants with HIV/AIDS, Slack revealed that municipal governments were poorly prepared to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the public workplace provided little protection for people with HIV/AIDS. (3) In the national survey of state government personnel managers concerning the effect of the ADA on public personnel management practices, Kellough found that a majority of respondents perceived that the ADA had no significant impacts on their organizations, while substantial proportions of respondents perceived that the ADA did have certain more narrowly defined impacts on public personnel practices. (4)

Bishop and Jones indicated that the overall assessment of the prospects for successful implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was positive. (5) However, they pointed out that administrative agencies would move slowly to issue regulations if groups representing persons with disabilities did not apply continual pressure on the agencies to fashion timely and effective regulations. (6) In the survey of municipal governments encompassing all cities in the United States with a population of 50,000 or more, Condrey and Brudney found that 49 percent of the responding municipal personnel directors considered lack of budgetary support to make necessary modifications a major obstacle to implementation of the ADA; 39 percent of the respondents reported that vague regulations made ADA implementation difficult. (7)

Condrey and Brudney also noted that "the respondents reported that making a reasonable accommodation was significantly more difficult for public safety positions such as police officers and firefighters and public works positions such as laborer and equipment operator," whereas "they reported less difficult in making job accommodations for technical positions such as computer programmer and drafter, professional occupations such as personnel analyst and accountant, and clerical occupations such as secretary and clerk." (8) These findings suggested that "the reach of the ADA's reasonable accommodation provisions may not extend equally to all occupational groups" and, thus, applicants seeking office positions or white-collar occupations, such as professional, administrative, technical, or clerical occupations may have a distinct advantage compared to applicants seeking blue-collar occupations. (9) Consequently, disabled white-collar workers could be more fairly represented than disabled blue-collar workers in public or private organizations.

Race or gender might make a difference in the employment of persons with disabilities, while occupation is linked to the degree of difficulties in making job accommodations. Racial or gender minorities who are not disabled tend to be highly concentrated in clerical or blue-collar jobs as opposed to professional and administrative jobs in the federal service. For instance, African American or Hispanic women are heavily concentrated in clerical occupations and lower-level grades, while Caucasian men are highly overrepresented in professional and administrative occupations and higher-level grades. (10) Asian federal employees, especially men, are most likely to be overrepresented in professional occupations, particularly engineering and computer science majors, while they are severely underrepresented in administrative occupations in the federal service.

Like racial or gender minorities without disabilities, the employment of disabled racial or gender minorities could be linked to racial or gender stereotypical occupations, roles or positions. For example, Caucasian men with disabilities in professional and administrative occupations may be better represented than other racial or female groups with disabilities in those jobs. African American women with disabilities in clerical occupations may be better represented than other racial or gender groups with disabilities in those jobs.

In addition to the occupational structure of persons with disabilities, the distribution of disabled veterans could be linked to the employment of the disabled in the federal service. In fact, veterans have an advantage over civilians in the hiring process. Furthermore, veterans might populate the departments whose missions or interests are related to those of veterans. Cornwell and Kellough noted that "interagency differences in the employment of women and minorities are systematically related to the distribution of occupations within an agency and an agency's demographic and organizational characteristics." (11)

Hypothesis: In the federal service, racial or gender minorities with disabilities have comparable occupational distributions as racial or gender minorities without disabilities. The distribution of veterans with disabilities is also the significant indicator of the employment of persons with disabilities.

Methodology

Aggregate demographic data on federal employees with disabilities by occupation, department, race, ethnicity, gender, or department are available from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The employment distribution of persons with disabilities in all full-time career civil positions--except elected and appointed positions--in the federal service in the year 2002 is examined with regard to race, ethnicity, gender, occupation and executive branch department. Grade and pay levels of federal employees with disabilities, however, are not analyzed because of insufficient data.

Findings and Discussion

Occupation and Gender

Table 1 displays the distribution of federal employees with disabilities with regard to occupational classification (PATCO) and gender in the year 2002. Table 1 indicates that the distribution of disabled federal employees in white-collar occupations was not significantly different from the distribution of disabled federal employees in blue-collar occupations (e.g., white-collar occupations 7.1% and blue-collar occupations 7.4%), but disabled men were better represented than disabled women across occupations (e.g., women 6.2% and men 7.9% in white-collar occupations; women 6.4% and men 7.5% in blue-collar occupations). (12) Table 1 also suggests that among white-collar occupations, disabled employees, especially men, were well represented in clerical and technical occupations, whereas disabled employees--especially women--were poorly represented in professional and administrative occupations in the federal service.

Professional and administrative positions generally require more education and more years of experience than do clerical and technical positions. (13) Most decision-making positions are filled by professional and administrative occupations. Almost 43 percent of the federal senior executives in 1999 were occupied by professional occupations and approximately 40 percent administrative occupations. (14) Additionally, almost 44 percent of the federal senior executives in 1999 had bachelor's degrees, 35 percent master's degrees, and 16 percent had doctoral degrees. (15)

More importantly, when investigating the occupational distribution of employees with disabilities in the federal service, it seems that disabled white-collar employees or applicants do not necessarily have an advantage over disabled blue-collar employees or applicants with regard to employment. Even if job accommodations are accessible to the disabled, persons with disabilities should satisfy qualifications through education or experience in the selection and promotion process. That is why disabled professional workers in the federal service appear to be far less represented than disabled blue-collar workers or technical workers. Education, experience and performance in which persons with disabilities are less likely to be provided opportunities would still be the important determinants of successful career building in the public or private sector. Generally, with regard to education, employment, income and housing, people with disabilities are far worse off than people without disabilities; for example, the unemployment rate for persons with disabilities is more than 40 percent and 60 percent of the disabled are below the poverty level. (16)

When examining gender equality in federal employees with disabilities, men exceeded women remarkably (e.g., women 43.8% and men 56.2% in white-collar occupations; woman 9.9% and men 90.1% in blue-collar occupations in 2002). (17) The distribution of blue-collar male or female employees with disabilities, however, is very similar to the distribution of blue-collar male or female employees without disabilities (e.g., 9.9% and men 90.1% in blue-collar occupations with disabilities; woman 11.1% and men 88.9% in blue-collar occupations without disabilities in 2002). (18) More importantly, disabled white-collar female employees, especially in professional and administrative occupations, are far fewer than disabled white-collar male employees. This finding suggests that disabled female applicants or employees could have more difficulties in getting or performing jobs in the federal service than do disabled male applicants or employees. It is questionable whether difficulties of disabled female applicants or employees are from the management's poor preparation for accommodating women with disabilities or whether they are from discriminatory attitudes of organizational members. The provisions of the ADA and the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) regulations do not seem to make employers accommodate women differently from men in employment practices from job application procedures through termination because reasonable accommodations are made by person and not either by groups or by gender. The ADA also provides that if an accommodation entails a significant cost or difficulty--that is, undue hardship to the employer--it is not reasonable. (19)

Occupation, Race, and Ethnicity

Table 2 shows the distribution of federal employees with disabilities with regard to occupational classification (PATCO), race and ethnicity in 2002. With regard to race and ethnicity, the occupational distribution of federal employees with disabilities was very similar to that of federal employees without disabilities. More importantly, Table 2 indicates that a certain racial or ethnic group with disabilities tends to be highly overrepresented or severely underrepresented in a certain occupation, even though the occupational distribution of federal employees with disabilities is not significantly different from that of federal employees without disabilities with regard to race and ethnicity. For example, in professional and administrative occupations, Caucasians with disabilities were far better represented than racial minorities with disabilities. By contrast, African Americans with disabilities were heavily concentrated in clerical and technical occupations or blue-collar occupations. Hispanics with disabilities were severely underrepresented in all occupations. Furthermore, there were two times more Caucasian men in professional and administrative occupations than there were disabled Caucasian women in those jobs, and the number of disabled African American women in clerical occupations was two times higher than the number of disabled African American men in those jobs (not shown in Table 2). It is controversial whether this trend is due to a voluntary self-selection or organizational barriers against a certain racial or ethic group.

Another concern is that Asian Americans tend to be highly overrepresented in professional occupations (for instance, two times higher than the Asian general population). Disabled Asian Americans in the federal service, however, are not overrepresented in those jobs and seem to be proportionally well represented, though disabled Asian men in professional jobs double disabled Asian women in those jobs. It remains uncertain whether Asian Americans with disabilities in professional occupations perceive difficulties in serving the public sector and, thus, they are less likely to apply to the federal service. Furthermore, disabled women across all races are less likely to be represented in professional and administrative occupations. The only exception is that with regard to employment representation, disabled African American women do not significantly differ from disabled African American men in those occupations (not shown in Table 2).

Department and Veterans' Preference

Table 3 displays the 2001 distribution of federal employees with disabilities by department. More than half of federal workers with disabilities were employed at the departments where veterans are commonly populated, such as the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense. Those departments have not only a higher percentage of the disabled, but their mission is also related to veterans' interests or circumstances. A number of veterans, who have an advantage in the civil service tend to have a variety of disabilities. Table 4 shows that the departments which employ a higher percentage of veterans have a higher percentage of the disabled. The exception is that the Department of Transportation, which hires a higher percentage of veterans, has a lower percentage of the disabled. Table 4 also indicates that the departments which employ a higher percentage of female veterans also have a slightly higher percentage of the disabled. As a matter of fact, in 2001 almost 26 percent of federal employees were veterans and 17.7 percent of all federally employed veterans were the disabled. (20) More importantly, the vast majority of veterans are men. Only 9.9 percent of federal veterans in 2001 were women. (21) One of the crucial reasons there are relatively fewer female workers with disabilities in the federal service could be because of veterans' preference, which is often considered unfair to women. Analyzing the federal workforce data between 1975 and 1995, however, Mani found that the impacts of veterans' preference on women's careers in the federal civil service was not significant and "veterans' preference is less likely to be a barrier to women in the federal civil service in the future." (22)

Implications for Public Employment of the Disabled

This study examined the employment patterns of disabled federal employees with regard to occupation, race, gender and department through an analysis of aggregate demographic data on full-time disabled employees in the federal service. With regard to race or gender, the occupational distribution of federal employees with disabilities is similar to that of federal employees without disabilities. Regardless of whether women and minorities are disabled or not, they are likely to be underrepresented in administrative and professional jobs. Like employees without disabilities, disabled employees appear to be linked to racial or gender stereotypical roles and occupations in the federal civil service. Caucasian men with disabilities in professional and administrative jobs tend to be much better represented than other racial or gender groups with disabilities in those jobs, while African American women with disabilities in clerical jobs are far better represented than other racial or gender groups with disabilities in those jobs. Interestingly, unlike employees without disabilities, disabled employees--especially men--are better represented in clerical and technical occupations than administrative and professional jobs. More importantly, disabled white-collar workers or applicants do not necessarily seem to have an advantage over disabled blue-collar workers or applicants. In the federal service, disabled professional workers appear to be far less represented than disabled blue-collar or technical workers, although professional occupations could be less difficult in making job accommodations than blue-collar occupations or technical occupations. Since education, experience and performance are the most important factors in employment practices, persons with disabilities should be provided not only reasonable accommodations but also opportunities to obtain those qualifications.

Furthermore, disabled employees in the federal service face not only considerable racial or ethnic inequalities but also remarkable gender inequalities with regard to employment representation. Female employees with disabilities are more likely to be concentrated in clerical occupations, and disabled white-collar female employees, especially in professional and administrative occupations, tend to be far fewer than disabled white-collar male employees. If a certain racial, ethnic, or gender group continues to be highly overrepresented or severely underrepresented in a certain occupation or if there exists organizational barriers in a certain occupation against a certain racial, ethic, or gender group, this threatens the significance of workforce diversity and the importance of representation. Diversity in the civil service can create greater bureaucratic responsiveness. Diverse workforces with regard to race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, and disability help bureaucracies remain not only more internally democratic but also more responsive to citizen needs.

Authors' note: An early version of this article was presented at the November 11-13, 2004 International Conference on Social Science Research in New Orleans, La.

Notes

(1) Pfeiffer, David. 1998. "Understanding the Americans with Disabilities Act." In Stephen E. Condrey (Ed.), Handbook of Human Resource Management in Government. San Francisco: Josse-Bass Publisher. pp. 199-213.

(2) The average cost of reasonable accommodations is usually not high: for example, the average cost of the accommodations for employees with disabilities in Sears, Roebuck and Co. between 1978 and 1992 was $121 and between 1993 and 1995 $45 (Blanck, Peter. 1996. "Transcending Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act: A Case Report on Sears, Roebuck and Co." Mental and Physical Disabilities Law Reporter 20 (2): 279-286). At federal and state levels, tax policies encourage the accommodation of workers with disabilities. "Section 190 of the Federal Tax Code provides a deduction for costs associated with making facilities accessible and usable by a person with a disability. In 1990, Congress approved the Disabled Access Credit, which establishes a 50% credit for the first $10,000 (over a $250 threshold) of expenses incurred each year by a small business to comply with the ADA" (Blanck, Peter, Lisa Schur, Douglas Kruse, Susan Schwochau, and Chen Song. 2003. "Calibrating the Impact of the ADA's Employment Provisions." Stanford Law and Policy Review 14 (2): 267-290).

(3) Slack, James D. 1996. "Workplace Preparedness and the Americans with Disabilities Act: Lessons from Municipal Governments' Management of HIV/AIDS." Public Administration Review 56 (2): 159-167.

(4) Kellough, J. Edward. 2000. "The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990: A Note on Personnel Policy Impacts in State Government." Public Personnel Management 29 (2):211-224.

(5) Bishop, Peter C., and Augutus J. Jones, Jr. 1993. "Implementing the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990: Assessing the Variables of Success." Public Administration Review 53 (2): 121-128.

(6) Ibid, p. 127.

(7) Condrey, Stephen E., and Jeffrey L. Brudney. 1998. "The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990: Assessing Its Implementation in America's Largest Cities." American Review of Public Administration 28 (1): 26-42.

(8) Ibid, p. 32.

(9) Ibid, p. 33.

(10) Cornwell, Christopher, and J. Edward Kellough. 1994. "Women and Minorities in Federal Government Agencies: Examining New Evidence from Panel Data." Public Administration Review 54 (May/June): 265-270.

(11) Ibid, p. 265.

(12) U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2003. Federal Civilian Employment Distribution of People with Disabilities by PATCO, RNO and Gender. (Unpublished Manuscript)

(13) Unfortunately, individual or aggregate data on disabled federal employees with regards to education, years of service, grade, salary, and promotion are not available for the public.

(14) U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2000. The Senior Executive Service. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

(15) Ibid.

(16) Pfeiffer, David. 1991. "The Influence of the Socio-Economic Characteristics of Disabled People on Their Employment Status and Income." Disability, Handicap and Society 6 (2): 103-114; Pfeiffer, David. 1998. p. 201.

(17) U.S. Office of Personnel Management, op. cit., 2005.

(18) Ibid.

(19) Pfeiffer, op.cit., 1998. p. 206.

(20) U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2002. Demographic Profile of the Federal Workforce. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

(21) Ibid.

(22) Mani, Bonnie G. 1999. "Challenges and Opportunities for Women to Advance in the Federal Civil Service: Veterans' Preferences and Promotions." Public Administration Review 54 (November/December): 523-534.

Chon-Kyun Kim, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Master of Public Administration Program

Department of Social Sciences

Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi

6300 Ocean Drive

Corpus Christi, Texas 78412

(361) 825-5511

chon.kim@tamucc.edu

Chon-Kyun Kim is an assistant professor in the Master of Public Administration Program at Texas A&M University's Department of Social Sciences located in Corpus Christi. His research has appeared in Administration and Society, the International Journal of Public Administration, Public Administration Quarterly, and Public Personnel Management. His research interests include human resources management, e-government, globalization, organization theory, and public policy. Table 1: Federal Civilian Employment Distribution of People with Disabilities by PATCO and Gender, 2002 (unit: percent)

Disabled Disabled All by

by Gender Gender White Collar

Female 6.2 43.8 49.8

Male 7.9 56.2 50.2

Total 7.1 Professional

Female 4.6 35.7 40.7

Male 5.8 64.3 59.3

Total 5.3 Administrative

Female 5.4 36.7 44.7

Male 7.5 63.3 55.1

Total 6.6 Technical

Female 7.4 48.4 60.1

Male 11.9 51.6 39.9

Total 9.2 Clerical

Female 8.2 65.5 80.3

Male 17.4 34.5 19.7

Total 10.0 Blue Collar

Female 6.4 9.9 11.1

Male 7.5 90.1 88.9

Total 7.4 Grand Total 7.1 Source: U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2003. Federal Civilian Employment Distribution of People with Disabilities by PATCO, RNO and Gender. (Unpublished Manuscript) Table 2: Federal Civilian Employment Distribution of People with Disabilities by PATCO and Race or Ethnicity, 2002 (unit: percent)

Native

White Black Hispanic Asian American White Collar

Disabled Employees 72.0 16.3 6.1 3.3 2.2

All Employees 70.4 16.7 6.4 4.4 2.0 Professional

Disabled Employees 81.1 8.1 4.2 4.7 1.9

All Employees 78.2 8.7 4.4 7.3 1.4 Administrative

Disabled Employees 75.1 14.4 5.8 2.6 2.0

All Employees 74.1 15.2 6.2 3.0 1.5 Technical

Disabled Employees 66.9 20.0 7.3 3.1 2.6

All Employees 63.1 22.7 7.3 3.8 3.3 Clerical

Disabled Employees 63.8 23.6 6.9 3.3 2.4

All Employees 58.4 29.1 7.7 4.1 2.7 Blue Collar

Disabled Employees 65.9 20.2 6.9 4.1 2.9

All Employees n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a Grand Total

Disabled Employees 71.2 16.8 6.2 3.4 2.0

All Employees n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a Source: U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2003. Federal Civilian Employment Distribution of People with Disabilities by PATCO, RNO and Gender. (Unpublished Manuscript) Table 3: Federal Civilian Employment Distribution of People with Disabilities by Executive Department, 2001

Total Disabled % Severely %

Disabled Executive Branch 1,764,083 120,634 7.1 19,702 1.2 Executive Departments 1,584,295 108,477 7.0 17,024 1.1

State 19,976 1,847 9.4 84 0.4

Veterans Affairs 224,778 20,289 9.2 3,796 1.7

Housing & Urban 10,145 845 8.7 144 1.5

Development

Defense 659,228 46,820 7.2 6,548 1.0

Agriculture 110,739 7,671 7.2 1,120 1.0

Treasury 147,471 10,231 7.1 2,232 1.6

Labor 16,358 1,097 7.1 205 1.3

Energy 16,056 1,034 6.9 131 0.9

Health & Human Services 65,125 3,937 6.5 702 1.2

Education 4,841 290 6.5 79 1.8

Commerce 40,061 2,484 6.4 389 1.0

Interior 76,880 4,736 6.4 713 1.0

Transportation 65,455 3,212 5.0 367 0.6

Justice 127,182 3,984 3.2 514 0.4 All other Executive 179,788 12,157 7.4 2,678 1.6

Branch Agencies Source: U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2002. Demographic Profile of the Federal Workforce. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. Table 4: Federal Civilian Employment Distribution of Veterans by Executive Branch, 2001

All

Total % Women % Disabled % Executive Branch 442,156 25.8 43,868 9.9 78,414 17.7 Executive Departments 417,600 27.2 41,689 10.0 74,917 17.9

Veterans Affairs 63,010 28.0 9,688 15.4 15,309 24.3

Labor 3,170 19.4 285 9.0 761 24.0

Defense 230,186 37.6 22,805 9.9 43,683 19.0

Housing & Urban 1,554 15.3 137 8.8 276 17.8

Development

Education 461 9.5 38 8.2 77 16.7

Interior 14,152 18.4 808 5.7 2,070 14.6

Health & Human Services 5,801 8.9 795 13.7 778 13.4

Energy 3,710 23.1 190 5.1 485 13.1

Treasury 21,467 14.6 1,769 8.2 2,758 12.8

Justice 28,136 22.1 2,175 7.7 3,482 12.4

Commerce 5,439 13.6 359 6.6 662 12.2

Agriculture 14,949 13.5 987 6.6 1,808 12.1

Transportation 22,731 34.7 1,425 6.3 2,522 11.1

State 2,834 14.2 228 8.0 246 8.7

All other Executive 24,461 13.7 2,166 8.9 3,492 14.3

Branch Agencies Source: U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 2002. Demographic Profile of the Federal Workforce. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.