Abstract
Capable, qualified, and working-age (18-65) autistic adults experienced an 83% unemployment rate in the United States in 2017 resulting in extreme poverty and severely decreased quality of life. Research dating from 1957 to 2016 inferred hiring agents’ beliefs were the cause. In this multiple regression study, the nature of the relationship between hiring agents’ beliefs and their selection of qualified autistic candidates was explored through Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior to determine what hiring agent’s beliefs, if any, influence the selection of qualified autistic candidates to fill open positions. I used the Hiring Agent Survey Regarding Selection of Qualified Autistic Candidates to anonymously gather data from hiring agents throughout the contiguous United States. Known values of the independent variable, the beliefs influencing hiring agents, were summed and clustered against the TPB-predicted, percentage-based, continuous-level dependent variable, which was hiring agents’ selection of qualified autistic candidates. This statistically significant regression analysis, F(45, 73) = 36.067, p < .001, adj. R2 = .930, predicted the degree to which each control, normative, and behavioral belief influenced hiring agents’ selection. Hiring agents’ desire for mandated comprehensive organizational diversity, along with their negative stereotypical associations and fear of embarrassment, signify a need for substantive policy and strategic interventions. Results of such aggressive diversity initiatives could considerably improve the nation’s socioeconomic health and substantively increase autistics’ quality of life.
Highlights
There is an unemployment crisis among autistic adults in the United States
The central overarching question of this study and corresponding hypotheses were, What is the nature of the relationship among the potential control, normative, and behavioral beliefs of hiring agents (IVs) and hiring agents’ selection of qualified autistic candidates (DV)?
Hiring agents’ normative and behavioral beliefs dampened their aversion to redesigning work processes to accommodate autistic employees
Summary
There is an unemployment crisis among autistic adults in the United States. At the end of 2017, the calculated U.S unemployment for qualified autistic candidates was 83% (Mai, 2018), while the unemployment rate for the general United States population was 4% (U.S Department of Labor [DOL] Bureau of Labor and Statistics [BLS], 2018). Reducing autistic unemployment would noticeably improve autistics’ socioeconomic well-being and quality of life through increased independence and societal contribution. Such positive social change increases respect for human rights in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2009). Clinical research conducted from 1957 to 2010 did not consider employer perspectives; rather, most studies either ascertained the percentage of the population diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or their level of employable functionality While knowledge of both is critical a component of the equation, it does not address reasons why employers do not hire autistics. Many scholars inferred that the beliefs of those responsible for hiring are the reason why disabled candidates were not employed; the reasons why employers do not hire qualified autistics candidates remain unknown (Copeland, Chan, Bezyak, & Fraser, 2010; Harris Interactive, 2010; von Schrader, Malzer, Erickson, & Bruyère, 2011)
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