Vinicius Gaspar Garcia (in memoriam) and Alexandre Gori Maia analyzed the impacts of employment quotas for people with disability in Brazil. The employment quotas law (approved in 1991, but effectively enforced only in the 2000s) orientates companies with 100 or more employees to hire between 2% and 5% of people with disabilities, depending on the company size. The authors found positive and relevant impacts of employment quotas on occupational achievements of people with disability.  

The paper by Gaspar Garcia and Gori Maia, recently published at the Brazilian Journal of Applied, compares the impacts of employment quotas on people with more severe and less severe disabilities. The study shows that the policy favored people with more severe levels of disability mainly in their access to employment. However, while these workers continue to obtain low paid jobs, those most qualified with less severe limitations attained the better occupational positions, and hence, higher wages.