According to a Johns Hopkins University study, U.S. employers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields pay doctoral graduates with childhood disabilities an average of $10,580 less per year than those without disabilities (Nat. Hum. Behav. 2023, DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01745-z). For scientists and engineers with disabilities in academia, the pay gap is even wider, with an average annual salary of $14,360 less than their non-disabled colleagues.
While many studies have looked at wage gaps for women and people of color in STEM fields, researchers have largely overlooked the gaps for scientists and engineers with disabilities. Until now, “the disparities faced by people with disabilities in STEM fields have been poorly understood and analyzed,” says Bonnielynn Swener, director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Disability and Health Research and one of the study’s authors. “It’s hard to change something that you don’t know needs to be changed.”
The wage gap the researchers uncovered could have many contributing factors, but Swenar says much of it stems from STEM not being designed with disabilities in mind. She explains that ableist beliefs that people with disabilities can’t succeed in science and academia, combined with inaccessible spaces, can limit job opportunities for scientists and engineers with disabilities, especially if they were injured in childhood, and negatively impact salary negotiations.
And even after people with disabilities are hired, they may face bias from non-disabled colleagues and superiors that limit their opportunities for career advancement. When Swenor and her colleagues analyzed data from the National Science Foundation’s 2019 PhD Recipient Survey, they found a lack of disabled STEM professionals in senior academic roles, including professors, tenured scholars, and university deans and presidents. The researchers believe this is the cause of a particularly large wage gap in academia.
Alyssa Paparella, a doctoral student in cancer and cell biology at Baylor College of Medicine who was not involved in the study, calls the findings heartbreaking — and worrying. “As someone who is open about having a disability early in my career, I worry about how this wage gap will impact my future career,” she wrote in an email.
To mitigate the wage gap, more data needs to be collected, Swenar said: “Without data, we don’t have the evidence to create policies, programs and strategies that address the barriers that we as disabled people face every day.”
At the same time, Swenor says STEM institutions need to start putting more people with disabilities in positions of power. “You really need people in leadership positions to drive change,” she says.