Age and Assessments of Disability Accommodation Request Normative Appropriateness

Abstract

In the United States, the labor force continues to age. As age increases, so does the likeliness of needing disability accommodation. Prior research indicates that people with disabilities often do not request needed accommodations when they assess that others at work would perceive a request as normatively inappropriate. Little, however, is currently known about the impact of age on these assessments. In this study, we integrate prior research on age, disability, social identity, and climate to propose and then test a model of the relationship between requesters’ age and their normative assessments using survey data from 242 people who became hearing impaired prior to entering the workforce. As hypothesized, requester age was negatively associated with normative appropriateness assessment favorability. Moreover, this negative influence was stronger in for‐profit organizational contexts and in workgroup contexts in which the requester lacked a coworker with a disability. Having a coworker with a similar disability also partially mediated the moderating effect of organization type on the association between age and normative appropriateness assessment favorability. Implications for research and practice are discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.