Physical disability in the workplace: A career life cycle review

This review examines how individuals with physical disabilities experience the career life cycle, with a central focus on how variability in physical disability visibility shapes the accommodations provided to these individuals and their broader career experiences. Using Web of Science and Scopus, we screened 1871 peer‐reviewed English‐language empirical articles and retained 291 studies focused on physical disability at work. Articles were coded for topics such as disability type, career stage, and country of origin. Descriptive synthesis revealed a predominance of mobility and musculoskeletal impairments and a strong concentration of studies conducted in high‐income Western countries. Thematic analysis identified consistent patterns across career stages, including bias in recruitment and selection, barriers to onboarding and development, performance‐related bias, limited advancement opportunities, and mixed implementation of workplace accommodations. Across stages, physical disability visibility consistently appears to moderate accommodation experiences, with employees with less visible physical disabilities facing greater skepticism about accommodation legitimacy, and those with more visible physical disabilities encountering prescriptive assumptions about their needs. Overall, this review highlights a fragmented set of evidence shaped by deficit‐based assumptions, narrow disability coverage, and individual‐level methodologies. We call for future research that integrates interpersonal, organizational, and policy‐level dynamics to better explain how physical disability at work interacts with career stage, visibility, and context, offering guidance for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers seeking to develop more equitable and sustainable career pathways for employees with physical disabilities.