Neurodiversity in the Workplace | Statistics | Update 2024

If you have never heard the term “neurodiversity” before or have heard it and you are unclear about it, we should do a little review before jumping into the statistics, as many of them depend on the type of neurodiversity. If you are already familiar with the topic, feel free to jump into the gross data.

Neurodiversity or neurodivergence refers to variations in the human brain and cognition in each individual, such as in the areas of sociability, learning, attention, mood, and other mental functions. However, the term is more closely linked to autism spectrum disorder, as it was the autistic rights movement that started to push the use of this concept.

Note that, if you’re interested to learn more about ASD at work, we also covered autism and employment statistics which is updated with the latest statistics.

Neurodiversity is thus based on the idea that there are neurodiverse people and neurotypical people.

Neurodiverse people include those with conditions such as:

• autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) ;
• attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) ;
• developmental speech disorders ;
• dyslexia ;
• dysgraphia ;
• dyspraxia ;
• dyscalculia ;
• dysnomia ;
• intellectual disability ;
• Tourette syndrome.

Sources: NomadReveals, Scientific American Blog Network, Springer

In this Statistic Roundup About Neurodiversity in the Workplace, you’ll learn:

–Neurodiversity Statistics: (Editor Picks)

–General neurodiversity statistics

–Neurodiversity in the United States

–Neurodiversity in the workplace

–Employment and neurodiversity

–Profits and costs of neurodiversity

Is your company offering jobs for people with disabilities? As an employer, you can publish your job offers on MyDisabilityJobs and reach thousands of qualified candidates.

Neurodiversity Statistics and Numbers : (Editor Picks)

• Worldwide prevalence: 15% to 20% of the population is considered to be neurodiverse.

• Neurodiversity by gender: Men present more neurodiversity than women worldwide and at minor scales as well.

• Special abilities: Research shows that conditions such as autism and dyslexia can bestow special skills in pattern recognition, memory, or mathematics.

• Intelligence: Autism presents higher IQ scores than average.

• Work performance: studies found that neurodiverse teams are 30% more productive than neurotypical ones and made fewer errors.

• Employment: neurodiverse people are more likely to be unemployed than people with any other disability. Unemployment for neurodivergent adults runs at least as high as 30-40% which is three times the rate for people with disability, and eight times the rate for people without disabilities.

General Neurodiversity Statistics

• Around 15% to 20% of the population is considered to be neurodivergent.
• Approximately 5% to 10% of the global population has dyslexia.
• The World Health Organization estimates that 1 in 160 children have Autism Spectrum Disorder worldwide in 2019.
• Average or above-average IQ scores (IQ > 85) occur in 44% of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
• Research shows that conditions such as autism and dyslexia can bestow special skills in pattern recognition, memory, or mathematics.

There are no global statistics with comprehensive records as the umbrella term neurodiversity or neurodivergence groups together various conditions and studies and statistics concentrate on specific conditions. They are also highly dependent on the country’s efforts. For example, the prevalence of autism in many low- and middle-income countries is unknown.

Sources: Higher Education Journal, Harvard Business Review, Forbes Human Resources Council.

Neurodiversity in the United States

This is the landscape for the general population in the US regarding neurodiversity:

• About 2.21% of adults in the United States have Autism Spectrum Disorder. That is around 5,437,988 people.
• The states with the greatest estimated number of adults living with ASD included California (701,669), Texas (449,631), New York (342,280), and Florida (329,131).

• Approximately 3.62% (4,357,667) of male adults were estimated to have autism.
• Approximately 0.86% (1,080,322) of female adults were estimated to have autism.
• Minority groups tend to be diagnosed later and less often.

Most of the studies have focused on children and youngsters. This is what those show:

• In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 1 in 44 children is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.
• The incidence of autism is 1 in 42 among boys and 1 in 189 among girls
• Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls.
• Most children were still being diagnosed after age 4, though autism can be reliably diagnosed as early as age 2.
• About 31% of children with autism have an intellectual disability (IQ <70)
• About 25% are of children are in the borderline range of intellectual capabilities (IQ 71–85)
• 44% of children have IQ scores in the average to above-average range ( IQ >85).

Autism affects all ethnic and socioeconomic groups in the US.

Rural areas present more prevalence of developmental disabilities in children

ADHD is the most common neurodiversity among college students

Regarding the attention deficit or/and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), it is becoming increasingly recognized that, along with this disorder, a person may also experience symptoms of other neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, Asperger’s, Tourette’s syndrome, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), dyslexia, and dyspraxia:

• Approximately 1 in 2 people with ADHD have dyslexia
• Approximately 1 in 2 people with ADHD have dyspraxia
• 9 in 10 people with Tourette’s have ADHD
• 2 in 3 people with ADHD have autistic spectrum traits
• People with ADHD are 8-fold more likely to meet the full criteria for an autistic spectrum diagnosis

Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Autism Speaks, ADHD Aware

Neurodiversity in the Workplace

The companies perspective:

At its core, diversity is about welcoming alternative ways of thinking. Nowadays, organizations are embracing diversity to unlock innovation, get new insights, and be better prepared to navigate today’s fast-changing business environment. That’s why many companies had reformed their HR processes to welcome neurodiverse talent.

Here are some of the most important companies that have done it lately:

• SAP ;
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise ;
• Microsoft ;
• Willis Towers Watson ;
• Ford ;
• EY ;
• IMB ;
• Caterpillar ;
• Dell Technologies ;
• Deloitte ;
• JPMorgan Chase ;
• UBS ;

And we can spot some of the findings of these organizations:

• IMB has created a group with more than 1400 members supporting neurodiversity in the workplace
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise conducted a program that showed that the neurodiverse teams are 30% more productive than the others.
• Research from a 2018 Deloitte report found that companies with inclusive cultures were six times more likely to be innovative and agile.
• A report by JPMorgan Chase found that professionals in its Autism at Work initiative made fewer errors and were 90% to 140% more productive than neurotypical employees.
• Organizations that provide mentors to professionals with a disability reported a 16% increase in profitability, 18% in productivity, and 12% in customer loyalty.21

The negative side:

Despite those good results, there is still some fear of hiring a neurodiverse workforce.

A survey of 500 companies showed low trust in hiring people with mental disabilities:

• 90% of the respondents responded affirmatively to hiring individuals with physical disabilities or hearing impairments.
• 39% responded affirmatively to hiring individuals with severe physical disabilities.
• 20% responded affirmatively to hiring applicants with severe mental disabilities.
• 79% of the employers perceived the amount of training and supervision for workers with learning disabilities to be greater than that for non-disabled coworkers.
• One-third of the respondents indicated that they would not knowingly hire an applicant with a learning disability.
• Three-fourths of the employers (72%) were willing to give individuals with learning disabilities special considerations that they would not afford to coworkers without disabilities.

Impact on disclosing:

Due to stigma and lack of information, neurodiverse employees do not disclose their conditions to their employers.

• The majority of participants had chosen to disclose to some—but not all—people at work.
• Half of the participants said that they only disclosed their diagnosis after starting the job.
• A third of participants, however, said they disclosed it to everyone.
• Over a third of participants felt that the impact of disclosing to a supervisor or coworker was positive.
• A small number of participants said that the subsequent adjustments made by their coworkers were somewhat or extremely positive.

Sources: Harvard Business Review, Deloitte, Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities Journal, Autism in Adulthood

Employment and Neurodiversity

The neurodiverse population remains a largely untapped talent pool, even competent neurodiverse people are often underemployed.

• Unemployment for neurodivergent adults runs at least as high as 30-40% which is three times the rate for people with disability, and eight times the rate for people without disabilities.
• In the United States, it is estimated that 85% of people on the autism spectrum are unemployed, compared to 4.2% of the overall population.
• Disabled working people were significantly less likely to be employed as managers, directors, or senior officials, or to be employed in professional occupations (27.2% compared to 34.5% for non-disabled people).
• In the UK autistic people are the least likely to be employed of any other disabled group. Just 21.7% of autistic people are in employment.
• Half of the disabled people (52.1%) aged 16 to 64 years in the UK were employed in 2020 compared with around 8 in 10 (81.3%) of non-disabled people. Of that group, just 21.7% of autistic people were in employment.

Unfortunately, when talking about employment, exact data is unknown because few resources track the specifics of unemployment among a wide range of neurodiversity, not just autism but also ADHD, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and many other neurological differences. Unfortunately, in many cases, the research needed for developing these statistics does not exist yet.

Sources: University of Connecticut, Autistica Org

Profits and Costs of Neurodiversity

• The cost of caring for Americans with autism had reached $268 billion in 2015 and would rise to $461 billion by 2025 in the absence of more-effective interventions and support across the life span.

• The majority of autism’s costs in the U.S. are for adult services – an estimated $175 to $196 billion a year, compared to $61 to $66 billion a year for children.

• On average, medical expenditures for children and adolescents with autism were 4.1 to 6.2 times greater than for those without autism.  

• Nearly half of 25-year-olds with autism have never held a paying job.

And what about the gains?

Added to what we previously mentioned about productivity gains and benefits of having neurodiverse employees, the estimates of the benefits a government gains by turning such people into tax-paying tech workers are on the order of $50,000 per person a year.

Sources: Harvard Business Review

Is your company offering jobs for people with disabilities? As an employer, you can publish your job offers on MyDisabilityJobs and reach thousands of qualified candidates.

Conclusion

Neurodiversity is a concept that is just beginning to be understood and still needs a lot of research and interest to have more accurate data. However, large companies have joined forces to recognize the special abilities of neurodivergent individuals and this offers a promising future for harnessing the potential of these individuals. Employability is key to their development. Research demonstrates that job activities that encourage independence, reduce autism symptoms and increase daily living skills.

Equally, early intervention is key to afford the best opportunity to support healthy development and deliver benefits across the lifespan.

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