Samhall Work Experience and Employability: A Field Experiment on Disability Discrimination in the Swedish Labor Market

Abstract

Employment is vital for the quality of life and societal integration of disabled people, who often encounter barriers. Programs like Sweden’s state-owned company Samhall are designed to level the playing field. Yet, whether discrimination persists after program participation and ample work experience remains an intriguing question. We investigated whether signaling disability through work experience at Samhall affects employability in Sweden for cleaning roles. A field experiment was conducted in which 768 fictitious job applications were sent to employers with vacant cleaner positions in Sweden. Implied disability, indicated by work experience at Samhall, and gender were randomly varied in the applications. The primary outcome metric was positive employer responses. Disabled applicants received fewer positive responses (28%) than non-disabled applicants (34%). Discrimination was more pronounced for disabled male applicants. The study reveals nuanced discrimination against job applicants with disabilities in Sweden, particularly disabled males, despite their extensive training and experience.

Keywords

• training
• disability
• discrimination
• employability
• field experiment