7

In France, an employment quota sets the minimum proportion of people with documented disabilities at 6% of the workforce in companies and public agencies. Its implementation requires categorization as “disabled worker,” whose main modality is an administrative status, the “reconnaissance de la qualité de travailleur handicapé” (recognition as being a disabled worker, RQTH). Based on 67 biographical interviews with people living with mobility or visual impairments or specific learning disorders, we analyze the ambivalent reception of this status by of this status by eligible persons. The RQTH has multiple implications: identity ascription to a possibly stigmatizing category, prerequisite for reasonable accommodation, and hypothetical lever for positive discrimination. People’s trade-offs depend on the visibility of their impairment and the socialization they have received. Requests for RQTH and mentions of the status during job applications are common and sometimes forced among people with mobility or visual impairments, while they are more atypical among people with specific learning disorders.