Older Workers With Disabilities: A Person-Centered Approach to Understanding the Effect of Comorbidity on Work Outcomes

Research on persons with disabilities (PWD) has identified robust challenges faced by these individuals within the context of work. Although there are clear associations between disability status and employment outcomes, the literature on PWD suffers from two primary gaps: (1) there is currently little to no research on the comorbidity of disability characteristics and (2) the consideration of how disability status uniquely affects the ever-increasing population of older workers has been understudied. The current study takes a person-centered approach, via latent class analysis, to examine the effects of disability characteristics on employment outcomes for older workers. We present findings from a sample of 328 older workers who self-identified as having at least one of several disabilities. Results suggest that there are six different classes of older workers with disabilities defined by varying levels of comorbidity. Across these classes, we find significant differences in ratings of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and perceptions of workplace discrimination.