Hubstaff Report
/ Released on November 27, 2023
U.S. science, technology, engineering and medical doctorates who were born with a disability or became disabled before age 25 earn $14,360 less per year in academia than their counterparts without disabilities, according to a new study by the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing’s Center for Disability and Health Research. They are also underrepresented in senior professorial and tenured roles, such as department chairs and provosts, according to the study published Nov. 27 in Nature Human Behavior.
“We’re trying to identify and remove barriers to inclusion,” said study author Bonnielynn Swener, a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and founder and director of the center. “To combat disparities, we need structural change.”
“We’re trying to identify and remove the barriers to inclusion.”
Bonnielynn Swenow
Director, Johns Hopkins University Center for Disability and Health Research
Previous studies have documented wage gaps and unequal representation in STEM fields among women and minorities in the U.S. Research has also found that scientists and engineers with disabilities are more likely to be unemployed than the overall U.S. workforce, regardless of the age at which their disability began. However, there is a lack of data on disparities for STEM PhD recipients with disabilities.
Swenor and colleagues looked for evidence of differences in pay and representation among STEM PhD recipients with disabilities before age 25 and those with disabilities after age 25, compared to PhD recipients without disabilities. The authors used national data on approximately 1.15 million U.S. research PhD recipients who earned their degrees between 1973 and 2017. Of the sample, 704,013 were currently working in STEM fields, of which 36,807 reported experiencing a disability later in life and 20,544 reported a disability from childhood. Within this subset, the authors matched individuals by socioeconomic background, occupation, and degree-related characteristics.
Across all employment sectors, STEM PhDs with disabilities earn $10,580 less per year than their non-disabled peers, and $14,360 less in academia. The authors also found that people with disabilities are underrepresented in senior faculty and tenured positions, such as deans and provosts. The authors call for structural reforms to close these disparities.
“The Disability Health Research Center aims to shift the paradigm from ‘living with disability’ to ‘thriving with disability,’ and is using a data-driven approach to drive change in many fields, including STEM,” Swenor says.
Currently, more than 27% of American adults have a disability, yet people with disabilities still face many barriers to health, equity, and inclusion.
Study authors include Franz Castro, research scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Disability Health Research, Elizabeth Stewart, chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Jennifer Diehl, associate professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Varshini Varadaraj, research scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Disability Health.