This fact sheet reports on data from the 2014 Health and Lifestyles Survey (HLS) around attitudes towards hiring employees with experience of mental illness.
Methodology
To measure attitudes towards hiring candidates with experience of mental illness, respondents in the 2014 HLS were shown a vignette that presented an employer choosing to hire a candidate with less work experience and no history of mental illness, over hiring a candidate with more work experience and a history of mental illness. Respondents were asked the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the employer’s decision.
For this analysis responses were grouped into ‘agree’ (‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’) or ‘disagree’ (‘neither agree nor disagree’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’). Responses were compared by gender, age, ethnicity, educational background, employment status, and neighbourhood deprivation. See the ‘About the Health and Lifestyles Survey’ section for more detail and the relevant comparison groups. Only group differences that were statistically significant (p < .05) are reported.
Key Results
• The majority (62%) of respondents were ambivalent (24%) or disagreed (38%) with an employer’s decision to hire a less experienced candidate with no experience of mental illness, over a more experienced candidate who had experience of mental illness.
• Those who were more likely to agree with the employer’s decision to hire the less experienced candidate with no experience of mental illness were: male, older people, people who identified with Asian ethnicity or those living in low deprivation neighbourhoods.