Legislative Protections from Discrimination in Access to Employer-Provided Training across 193 United Nations Countries

In this paper, we examine national-level policies across 193 United Nations countries that protect workers from discrimination in access to employer-provided training. Research has highlighted the importance of participation in training for advancement in the workplace. Yet participation in training often varies by sociodemographic factors such as gender, age, race/ethnicity, disability status, and social class, with potential implications for the long-term employment opportunities and wage outcomes for workers in those groups. In addition, previous studies have found discrimination to often be an underlying cause of these disparities. While private employers may choose to implement anti-discrimination policies at individual workplaces, public policies may be more effective in extending protections to all sectors, and to all workers.

Using data from the WORLD Policy Analysis Center, we compared the level of protection afforded to workers on the bases of gender, age, race/ethnicity, social class, and disability status. We assessed which countries specifically protect workers from discrimination in access to employer-provided training and identified patterns by region and country income level.

The findings from our analysis suggest that access to employer-provided training is not well-protected compared to other types of workplace protections, with fewer than three-fifths of countries enacting protections specific to training. Protection also varied greatly across sociodemographic groups: while about half of all UN countries had specific protections for training on the basis of gender, less than a quarter protected on the basis of disability. Given the advantages of training for workplace advancement, we argue that legislative protections from discrimination in access to employer-provided training could be an effective policy tool for reducing socio-demographic disparities in employment outcomes.