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There is substantial evidence of discrimination at work across countries and powerful evidence that antidiscrimination laws can make a difference. This study examines the extent of protections from discrimination at work in countries around the world and which groups were best covered.

This study assesses legal protections in hiring, pay, promotions/demotions, terminations and harassment for 13 different groups across 193 countries using a database the authors created based on analysis of labor codes, antidiscrimination legislation, equal opportunity legislation and penal codes. Differences in levels of protection were examined across social groups and areas of work, as well as by country income level using Chi-square tests.

Protection from gender and racial/ethnic discrimination at work was the most common, and protection across migrant status, foreign national origin, sexual orientation and gender identity was among the least. For all groups, discrimination was more often prohibited in hiring than in promotion/demotion. There was inconsistent protection from harassment and retaliation.

Addressing discrimination at work will require a broad range of synergistic approaches including guaranteeing equal legal rights, implementation and enforcement of laws and norm change. This study highlights where legislative progress has been made and where major gaps remain.

This article presents findings from an original database containing the first data on laws to prevent discrimination in the workplace in all 193 countries around the world. The study analyzes legal protections for a wide range of groups and considers a full range of workplace protections.

Classification schemes make things happen. The Australian Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), which derives its classification system from the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), legislates for adjustments to support the inclusion of people with disability. This study explores how students with disability enrolled in a university experience the systems intended to facilitate their studying “on the same basis” as students without disability.

Through an online questionnaire and interviews comprising open and closed questions made available to students registered with the disability services unit of a university and follow-up interviews with a small number of students, students’ views of their own disability and effects on their participation in learning were gathered, alongside reports of their experiences of seeking support in their learning. Interview data and responses to open-ended questions were analysed using a priori and emergent coding.

The findings demonstrate that students are aware of the workings of the classification scheme and that most accept them. However, some students put themselves outside of the scheme, often as a way to exercise autonomy or to assert their “ability”, while others are excluded from it by the decisions of academic staff. Thus, the principles of fairness and equity enshrined in legislation and policy are weakened.

Through the voices of students with disability, it is apparent that, even though a student's classification according to the DDA and associated university policy remains constant, the outcomes of the workings of the scheme may reveal inconsistencies, emerging from the complexity of bureaucracy, processes and the exercises of power.