Current situation and practices in companies from the perspective of disability advisors and company agreements.

Scientific coordination

Catherine Spieser (LISE, CNRS-CNAM, and LIEPP-Sciences Po)

Research team

• Jérôme Pelisse (Professor of Sociology, Director of the Master's program in Sociology Research and Doctoral Studies, Sciences Po Paris)
• Anne Revillard (Professor of Sociology, Director of LIEPP, Sciences Po Paris, and PRESPOL Project Coordinator)

Project description

People with disabilities, even though many of them are considered fit to work in a “normal environment,” have a higher unemployment rate than others, remain unemployed for longer periods of time, are on average less qualified, and more often hold blue-collar or low-skilled jobs.

Since 1987, in an attempt to improve these unfavorable conditions, specific measures targeting employers have been in place with the aim of promoting the integration and independence of people with disabilities (Revillard 2019). These measures aim to facilitate access to employment in the “mainstream workplace” for workers with disabilities through a quota policy that French law refers to as the “obligation to employ workers with disabilities” (OETH). This central public policy measure is based on a broad categorization of disability, encompassing all persons with administrative recognition as disabled workers (most often the RQTH granted by the MDPH, more rarely other forms of recognition involving financial assistance), who are beneficiaries of the employment obligation. Since the 2005 law, administrative recognition of disability has been extended to people with chronic disabling illnesses and officially takes into account mental disability.

However, this is only an “ambivalent recognition” (Bouchet and Revillard 2023) because the rights it confers remain hypothetical and imperfectly implemented in concrete situations, and discrimination persists. Disability remains the leading cause of discrimination referred to the Defender of Rights (21% of referrals for discrimination, ahead of origin, 13%, and health status, 9%). Access to employment and training is no exception: 21% of complaints relating to disability concern public employment, 19% concern education and training, 16% concern private employment, and 15% concern public goods and services (Défenseur des Droits 2024).

The legal obligation requires companies and administrations to employ at least 6% of workers classified as “disabled workers” (TH), but allows them to meet this obligation by various means. If they fail to meet the quota, they are required to pay a financial contribution to the relevant dedicated body (Agefiph for the private sector, or FIPHFP for the public sector).

Since 2005, the law has explicitly provided for various ways in which employers can fulfill their obligation: directly recruiting and employing disabled workers in accordance with standard labor or civil service law; entering into contracts with service providers and suppliers that employ disabled people; establishing collective agreements promoting the employment of people with disabilities; or paying penalties proportional to the number of jobs missing. To this can be added the retention of employees who become disabled during their working life as a result of illness or accident, which amounts to “producing disability internally” by encouraging those concerned to apply for RQTH status and declare themselves for counting purposes, which has the effect of automatically increasing the number of people with disabilities employed.

These strategies are embedded in social responsibility and diversity inclusion policies on the one hand, and for direct employment, in the support of employees by occupational health professionals and disability advisors and workplace accommodations on the other. They lead to a more or less successful integration into jobs and work groups (Valdes and Daubas-Letourneux 2022).

In 2018, the law reformed the OETH: it gave greater priority to direct employment by reducing the use of subcontractors, reaffirmed the transitional nature of the approved agreements, increased the number of companies subject to the scheme by lowering the threshold (the obligation now applies to companies, not establishments, with more than 20 employees), and modified the declaration to include it in nominative social data.

However, the OETH's results remain well below expectations and targets in terms of direct employment, according to public statistics. Direct employment will only reach 3.5% in 2022, having stagnated for several years (Collet 2023, DREES 2023). There is a shortfall of more than 150,000 disabled workers in full-time employment to reach the 6% target (DREES 2023). The available data sources also highlight significant contrasts between sectors of activity, types of companies, occupations, skill levels, etc. Thanks to the evolution of data and the work of DARES and DREES, it is now possible to draw up a more accurate assessment and highlight these contrasts.

Beyond the employment rate, the situations and career paths of individuals deserve closer attention. The fragmented career paths and experiences of workers with disabilities have gained visibility thanks to recent studies focusing on them (see, for example, Boudinet and Revillard 2022), as have the career paths of people with chronic illnesses who face difficulties in staying in employment or getting out of unemployment (Lhuillier and Waser 2016; Lhullier, Gelpe, and Waser 2024). The development of a specialized field of social science research on disability has also contributed to this. This work helps to shed light on the factors that hinder progress in employment inclusion and job retention. Research on people's life trajectories and recourse to the law (Lejeune 2019) shows in particular that employers' refusal to make workplace accommodations often leads to professional disengagement and distancing from the labor market.

However, there is little documentation on how employers implement the OETH, apart from statistics published by DARES and DREES at the macroeconomic level, economic studies evaluating the situation prior to the implementation of the latest reform based on old data (Barnay, Duguet, Le Clainche 2019; Bruneau et al. 2020), and a series of studies conducted at EHESP exclusively on the public sector under an agreement with FIPHFP, the results of which were presented at a study day last June.

We are seeking to address this gap as part of the PRESPOL project on the economic autonomy of people with disabilities through employment and social policies, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. In particular, a qualitative survey project is currently being developed to study the strategies of private sector employers in response to the OETH in its new legal framework, which came into force on January 1, 2020. This work will complement the new data sources available since 2020 to provide an accurate assessment of practices, in order to shed light on the diversity of configurations and the factors explaining the stagnation in employment rates.

In addition to and in connection with the Sciences Po Master's degree in sociology, this agreement proposes to focus on two other aspects of interest to trade unions, particularly the CFTC: the role of disability advisors, whose appointment is now mandatory in all companies with more than 250 employees (2018 law on freedom to choose one's professional future), and the assessment of approved disability agreements, many of which are coming to an end soon.

An overview of the inequalities and discrimination that remain, and the factors that explain them

An assessment of existing laws, using quantitative data as well as other work based on qualitative methodologies, is now essential. The aim is to highlight the inequalities and discrimination that remain, both in access to employment and in employment (sustainability of work, professional development, empowerment), in light of the available data and research.

This assessment will be based on a review of existing literature and public data sources (review of laws, persistent discrimination and inequalities as documented by new data collected and published by DARES, academic work, particularly in sociology, “gray literature” consisting of reports from organizations working in the field, etc.). It will also draw on the preliminary research results produced in PRESPOL on topics of interest (particularly in WP 3, on the qualitative assessment of the OETH). It will be supplemented by information gathered in interviews with disability advisors and union representatives, which will be the subject of a specific survey, the purpose of this agreement.

A survey of disability advisors

The role of disability advisor has developed since the 2005 law, and since 2019 it has been mandatory for companies with more than 250 employees and government agencies to appoint one. Work carried out in the public sector has highlighted the crucial role of disability advisors in providing practical support to employees for successful integration into jobs and work groups (Valdes and Daubas-Letourneux 2022). However, a recent survey shows that the role of disability advisor remains largely unregulated, varies greatly from one organization to another, and is given very different levels of importance, as evidenced by the significant variation in the amount of time devoted to it, as well as in the qualifications and experience of advisors (Jaffrès and Valdès 2024).

There appears to be a need to document the profiles and position of disability advisors in private sector companies in greater detail, but also to understand the role they play in the integration of employees with disabilities. This work will be based in part on the results of research conducted in the public sector and will use a similar methodology (semi-structured interviews, possibly accompanied by a questionnaire). The CFTC's network of disability advisors could be mobilized to identify stakeholders, conduct interviews, observe meetings, and observe the coordination work carried out by this network, including the difficulties and obstacles it may encounter. We also plan to participate in and observe the disability advisor university scheduled for March 2025, with all or part of the group of master's students.

Analysis of a sample of disability agreements

To comply with the OETH, companies can also choose to sign specific approved agreements. Many disability agreements have been signed to this end, but their content, and above all their impact on the practical integration of disabled workers, varies greatly. These agreements are now coming to an end and can no longer be renewed. This makes it all the more important to take stock of them. The end of the agreements raises several questions: what will happen to the measures that were put in place by the approved agreements? Will the issue of disability be integrated into “common law” social dialogue? What conclusions can be drawn from these agreements?

We propose to analyze a sample of agreements (negotiation context, content, implementation) in order to understand and evaluate their impact. The analysis of agreements, in terms of content, context, and implementation, is a proven method in the sociology of industrial relations for understanding how public employment and labor policies are implemented (Barrat and Daniel, 2002; Thoemmes, 2010; Grimaud, 2019; Pélisse and Wolmarck, 2022).

This work will make it possible to distinguish between agreements that implement actions that appear virtuous in terms of the recruitment and integration of people with disabilities, and those that are more akin to “internal disability production” by favoring support for existing employees who are encouraged to declare themselves as disabled workers, either as a result of health events in their personal or professional lives, or due to pre-existing conditions that were previously unknown. We may also question the links that can (or cannot) be made with the treatment of occupational health issues in corporate social dialogue, which currently faces a number of obstacles (Rey, Spieser, and Thobois 2024) .

Survey and methodology

The survey will be divided into two parts: disability representatives on the one hand, and disability agreements on the other. It will be based on a mixed methodology, both quantitative and qualitative, relying on the construction of a database, interviews, and observations. It will involve around ten researchers—three permanent staff members and six to nine master's students in sociology at Sciences Po participating in the collective survey as part of their training, mainly in the second semester (January–May 2025).

A second phase of the research will begin between June 2025 and September 2026 to fill in any gaps or unresolved issues left by the collective student survey: with the recruitment of a research assistant, the project will be able to expand in terms of data (more agreements and/or interviews with disability advisors, company monograph(s)) and deepen the analysis.