Quotas, and Anti-discrimination Policies Relating to Autism in the EU: Scoping Review and Policy Mapping in Germany, France, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Slovakia, Poland, and Romania.
Danielle Bunt, Robin van Kessel, Rosa A Hoekstra and 4 others
PMID 32441457WHAT IT FOUND
Employment quotas for people with disabilities remain active in six of seven EU countries studied, coexisting with anti-discrimination laws.
No country has autism-specific employment legislation, relying instead on general disability policies that may not address the unique barriers autistic people face.
Key findings
01Six of the seven EU Member States studied maintain employment quotas for people with disabilities, despite the widespread adoption of anti-discrimination legislation.
02None of the countries analyzed have autism-specific employment laws; all policies target disability in general.
03The shift from quota-based policies to anti-discrimination laws described in the 1990s did not result in the replacement of quotas, which were reintroduced or maintained in several countries.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study only analyzed quota and anti-discrimination legislation, ignoring other potentially relevant employment support policies. Because no autism-specific laws exist, the authors used general disability policy as a substitute, which may not accurately reflect the specific barriers autistic people face. Documents in languages other than English, Dutch, or German were translated using Google Translate, with verification by speakers for most but not all countries (Slovakia and Romania were not verified against original documents). The search was limited to legal databases and two scientific databases, which may have missed historic or non-digitized policy documents.
Declared interests
The authors declared no competing interests. The study was supported by non-U.S. government funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the persistence of quotas as evidence they are effective for autistic people. The paper shows quotas remain legally active but notes employment rates for autistic people are still very low, and it does not measure the impact of these policies on actual hiring outcomes.