Disability and Equity at Work

Hundreds of millions of people with disabilities around the world are out of work or underemployed. Disability and Equity at Work is the first book to document what can be done to improve the employment situation of people with disabilities globally, from attaining their first job through career advancement. Increasing employment rates makes economic sense. Estimates put the forgone income of having people with disabilities outside the labor market at 5-7% of a country's GDP.

Jody Heymann is Dean and Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Heymann was the Founding Director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University. Heymann's leadership in addressing working conditions and equity include founding and leading the Project on Global Working Families at Harvard University, establishing and leading the WORLD Policy Analysis Center which examines labor policy and disability policy as well as other social policies in all 193 UN countries, and directing training initiatives which brought students to over 25 countries to study effective approaches to improving working conditions and equity in a wide range of social spheres. She is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and held a Canada Research Chair in Global Health and Social Policy.

Michael Ashley Stein holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Co-founder and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, as well as Cabell Professor at William & Mary Law School, he has taught at Harvard, New York University, and Stanford law schools. An internationally recognized expert on disability law and policy, Stein participated in the drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, works with disabled persons organizations around the world, actively consults with governments on their disability laws and policies, and advises a number of UN bodies. Stein has received numerous awards for his work, and was recently appointed by President Obama to the United States Holocaust Council.

Gonzalo Moreno helped managed the Disability and Equity Initiative in 2011-2012 at the Institute for Health and Social Policy, which examined what policies and programs can lead to labor market improvements for persons with disabilities, with a specific focus on equitable, integrated and sustainable employment. Moreno now coordinates a large-scale international research and training project that seeks to understand how social policy affects infant, child and maternal health outcomes primarily in low- and middle-income countries.