Person-related and service-related factors predicting employment of individuals with disabilities

This exploratory study investigated the best predictors of employment among 13,751 individuals with disabilities who have exited from a state-federal VR services program in a US state in the south. Logistic regression analyses, which were conducted separately for nine categories of disabilities, indicated that only models of three disability categories (visual, hearing, and "other" disabilities) were significantly different from the corresponding constant-only models and improved the prediction accuracy of employment outcome over the null model. The findings suggested that males were more likely to be employed than females among individuals with visual and "other" disabilities; and ethnic minorities were more likely to be employed than those who were part of the majority ethnicity (Caucasian) among individuals with hearing and "other" disability types. Further, services directly targeting employment-related variables (training for and obtaining a job) and having a positive, forward-oriented perspective during the vocational rehabilitation process were significantly more likely to increase the likelihood of employment after the rehabilitation process among individuals with certain types of disabilities.