What Are the Employment Experiences of Youth with Autism After High School?

Data Note, #40, 2012

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By Alberto Migliore and Agnieszka Zalewska.

Data Source: The National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS-2)

As the number of youth diagnosed with autism increases across the nation, there is a growing interest in knowing about their employment experiences after high school. To explore this, we examined the findings from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2.

As Table 1 shows, over half of youth with autism worked at some point after leaving high school (67%). This figure was greater than for their peers with an intellectual disability (ID) (53%), although smaller compared with their peers with other disabilities (86%). When looking only at those employed at the time of the interview, however, the figures were smaller across all disability groups.

Youth with autism were more likely to work in office and administrative support (21%) compared to youth with ID (7%) and youth with other disabilities (8%). They were also less likely to work in the food industry (12%) or to do cleaning and maintenance (10%) compared to their peers with ID (20% and 19%).

Almost half of the youth with autism earned less than the federal minimum wage and reported that the majority of their co-workers were people with disabilities (42%). In addition, only about a third of youth with autism received paid vacation or sick leave (29%), and even less received health insurance (11%) or retirement benefits (10%). Despite these limitations, respondents indicated that work was an important positive experience: Over 85% of youth across the three disability groups reported liking their job very much or fairly well.

As the number of youth diagnosed with autism increases nationally, knowing more about their employment experiences after high school is an important first step toward improvement.

Table 1. Employment Outcomes of Transition-Age Youth

		Autism (%)	ID (%)	Other (%)
Worked for pay other than work around the house since leaving high school
Yes		67	53*	86*
No		33	47	14
Total		100	100	100
Currently has a paid job other than work around the house
Yes		45	37	61*
No		55	63	39
Total		100	100	100
Type of current or most recent job
Office and administrative support		21	7*	8*
Production		17	22	6*
Food preparation and serving		12	20*	12
Cleaning and maintenance		10	19*	5
Transportation and material moving		8	10	8
Sales		3	7	10*
Other		29	14*	50*
Total		100	100	100
Paid at least $5.15/hour and coworkers without disability
	Yes	58	69*	99***
No		42	31	1
Total		100	100	100
Received paid vacation or sick leave
Yes		29	38	36
No		71	62	64
Total		100	100	100
Received health insurance
Yes		11	22	29*
No		89	78*	71
Total		100	100	100
Received retirement benefits
Yes		10	22	25*
No		90	78*	75
Total		100	100	100
How well youth likes/liked his/her current or most recent job
Very much		34	64**	44*
Fairly well		53	28**	43*
Not much		3	8*	8*
Not at all		10	na	5
Total		100	100	100

Note. Cohen h effect sizes (Autism baseline): *Small **Medium ***Large

Because some youth may have reported wages relative to jobs performed in as early as 2006, we used the federal minimum wage of $5.15 in place at that time.

Acknowledgments

The development of this data note was funded by grant R40MC22646 through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Research Program. This is a publication of StateData.info, funded in part by the Administration on Developmental Disabilities, US Department of Health and Human Services (#90DN0216). This Data Note was cleared for dissemination on July 11th, 2012 by the IES Data Security Office.

A project of the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston

Suggested Citation

Migliore, A. and Zalewska, A. (2012). What Are the Employment Experiences of Youth with Autism After High School? DataNote Series,
DataNote 40. Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Boston, Institute for Community Inclusion.

StateData.info

This is a publication of StateData.info, funded in part by the Administration on Developmental Disabilities, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (#90DN0216).

A project of the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston