For better or worse? An immersive diary study of the effects of return to work policies on disabled employees

One in five employees in the UK (19% of the working age population, or 7.9 million people 16-64) reported a disability in 2019. Although 53.2% or 4.2 million of disabled people were employed, an increase of 2% or 354,000 from the prior year, the unemployment rate is 2.5 times that of non-disabled people, as employers have historically resisted the range of accommodations instantly implemented across a wide range of occupations and workplaces during the home quarantine stage of the COVID19 pandemic. Most of these social distancing policies will be progressively released through the staged return to work with interruptions and updates projected until late 2021. Disability organizations warn against "a return to ableism" instead, as work accommodations originally exclusively extended to disabled people became a burden to undo for those without disability. This 18-months diary study follows 20 UK-based disabled employees/free-lancers who repeatedly renegotiate vulnerabilities and accommodations.