Do disability legislations that are meant to be beneficial for the employment situation of persons with disabilities have nevertheless unintended negative consequences? To provide key resources such as the right to workplace accommodation, governmental agencies first need to identify eligible persons and label them accordingly. However, this label may, in turn, induce public and self stigma that entails negative consequences for labeled individuals. We address this puzzle using a quasi-experimental study design: sharp regression discontinuity design. Specifically, we examine whether individuals officially labeled as “severely disabled” perceive fewer opportunities for relationship building at work than their counterparts with a similarly severe, yet unlabeled, disability condition. We use data from 845 employees with disabilities, which was drawn from a representative German workforce data set. As expected, labeling leads to perceptions of fewer opportunities for relationship building. We find this effect to be independent from supervisor knowledge of subordinate disability, type of disability, and one’s visibility of disability. These robustness checks strengthen the argument that the labeling effect might be driven primarily by self stigma rather than public stigma. Implications for organizations and public authorities are discussed.

旨在有利于残疾人就业状况的残疾人立法是否还会产生意想不到的负面影响？为了提供诸如工作场所住宿权之类的关键资源，政府机构首先需要确定合格人员并相应地贴上标签。但是，此标签可能反过来引起公众和自我的污名，对被贴标签的个人造成负面影响。我们使用准实验研究设计解决了这个难题：锐利的回归不连续设计。具体来说，我们检查被正式标记为“严重残疾”的人是否比处于同样严重但未标记残疾状况的同龄人在工作中获得建立关系的机会更少。我们使用了845名残疾员工的数据，该数据来自具有代表性的德国劳动力数据集。不出所料，标签会导致人们减少建立关系的机会。我们发现这种影响独立于主管对下级残疾，残疾类型和残疾人可见度的了解。这些健壮性检查加强了这样的论点，即标签效应可能主要是由自我污名而非公共污名驱动的。讨论了对组织和公共机构的影响。这些健壮性检查加强了这样的论点，即标签效应可能主要是由自我污名而非公共污名驱动的。讨论了对组织和公共机构的影响。这些健壮性检查加强了这样的论点，即标签效应可能主要是由自我污名而非公共污名驱动的。讨论了对组织和公共机构的影响。