Why Productivity Can’t Be the Basis for Neurodivergent Rights

Bridgette Hamstead

Productivity is one of the most common justifications offered for neurodivergent inclusion, and it is one of the most dangerous. Over and over, access is defended by pointing to output, innovation, efficiency, or economic contribution. Neurodivergent people are welcomed when they are framed as assets and quietly excluded when they are framed as costs. This logic feels pragmatic in a capitalist society, but it is fundamentally incompatible with justice. Civil rights cannot rest on productivity because productivity is conditional, unstable, and deeply shaped by power. When rights are tied to output, they are no longer rights at all.

Civil rights exist precisely to protect people whose worth has historically been denied or made conditional. They are meant to constrain systems that reward conformity and punish difference, not to reinforce those systems by requiring marginalized people to prove their value. When neurodivergent access is justified primarily through productivity, the underlying message is clear. You may belong here as long as you perform well enough, consistently enough, and in ways that the system already recognizes as legitimate.

This is not how rights work. Rights are not earned through usefulness. They are not contingent on capacity, efficiency, or return on investment. They exist to ensure dignity, access, and protection regardless of performance. Every civil rights movement has had to confront this same logic. Black people were not granted civil rights because segregation was inefficient. Women were not granted rights because sexism reduced productivity. Disabled people were not protected because accessibility was profitable. Rights were demanded because exclusion was unjust.

Productivity-based arguments collapse under even minimal scrutiny. Productivity is not an inherent trait. It is an interaction between a person and an environment. It is shaped by workload design, sensory conditions, scheduling, evaluation criteria, and social expectations. Neurodivergent people are often labeled unproductive in systems that are actively hostile to their nervous systems, communication styles, and cognitive rhythms. When those same systems are redesigned, the productivity gap often narrows or disappears entirely. This does not prove that neurodivergent people are valuable when accommodated. It proves that systems decide who appears productive by design.

Even within accessible environments, productivity is not constant. Capacity fluctuates across a lifetime and across weeks, days, and hours. Neurodivergent burnout, illness, trauma, caregiving responsibilities, and environmental stress all affect output. If rights depend on productivity, then rights evaporate precisely when people are most vulnerable. A framework that only protects people at their peak is not a justice framework. It is a performance contract.

This is where productivity-based inclusion becomes particularly cruel. Neurodivergent people are often praised when they exceed expectations and blamed when they cannot sustain that level of output. High-performing autistic or ADHD people are held up as proof that systems work, while those who struggle are framed as personal failures or unfortunate exceptions. This creates a hierarchy within neurodivergent communities, where proximity to neurotypical productivity norms determines who is seen as deserving of access and respect. Civil rights frameworks reject this hierarchy outright. Justice must protect people across the full range of capacity, not only those who can mask, overextend, or burn themselves out to survive.

The emphasis on productivity also obscures the real function of many institutions. Schools, workplaces, and healthcare systems often claim to measure merit, but in practice they reward compliance, availability, speed, and conformity. Neurodivergent people who communicate differently, process information nonlinearly, or require flexibility are penalized even when their actual work is strong. When productivity is narrowly defined, it becomes a tool of exclusion rather than a neutral metric. Tying rights to such a metric simply launders discrimination through performance language.

There is also a deeper moral problem with productivity-based rights. It treats human beings as means rather than ends. It implies that a person’s entitlement to safety, access, and dignity depends on what they can produce for others. This logic is incompatible with any serious civil rights tradition. Human rights frameworks, disability rights law, and civil rights movements all begin from the premise that personhood is not conditional. Neurodivergent people do not need to justify their existence by being useful.

This becomes especially clear when considering neurodivergent people who cannot work, cannot work consistently, or cannot work in ways recognized by formal economies. Children, elders, people with high support needs, and people in periods of illness or burnout are routinely erased by productivity-based narratives. If productivity is the basis for rights, these people are rendered disposable. Civil rights frameworks exist precisely to prevent that outcome.

Productivity-based inclusion also fails to account for unpaid labor. Neurodivergent people perform enormous amounts of invisible work simply to survive. Masking, self-regulation, sensory management, accommodation negotiation, and recovery from overstimulation consume time and energy that never appear on productivity charts. Care work, community work, and emotional labor are similarly devalued. When rights are tied to narrow economic output, all of this labor is ignored, and the burden of survival is misread as inefficiency.

The focus on productivity also distorts advocacy strategy. It encourages neurodivergent people and their allies to argue for inclusion by highlighting exceptional talent, innovation, or cost savings. While these arguments may open doors in the short term, they ultimately reinforce the idea that access must be justified. They leave intact the underlying belief that those who are not profitable enough can be excluded without moral consequence. Civil rights movements have learned this lesson repeatedly. Arguments that hinge on utility may win concessions, but they do not secure justice.

A rights-based framework demands a different starting point. The question is not what neurodivergent people can produce, but what they are entitled to. They are entitled to education without punishment for difference. They are entitled to employment without coercion or exploitation. They are entitled to healthcare that is accessible and respectful. They are entitled to housing, safety, and community. These entitlements do not disappear when productivity fluctuates. They do not depend on innovation metrics or economic forecasts. They exist because exclusion causes harm and harm is unjust.

Rejecting productivity as the basis for rights does not mean rejecting work, contribution, or excellence. It means refusing to make survival conditional on them. Many neurodivergent people want to work, create, build, and contribute. Justice makes that possible by removing barriers and coercion, not by demanding proof of value. When people are supported rather than pressured, contribution becomes more sustainable and more meaningful. That outcome is a byproduct of justice, not its justification.

This distinction matters because societies are facing increasing instability. Economic precarity, climate disruption, pandemics, and political upheaval all make productivity less predictable for everyone. If rights are tied to output, more and more people will fall outside their protection. A justice framework that centers dignity rather than productivity is not only ethically sound. It is necessary for collective survival.

Productivity cannot be the basis for neurodivergent rights because productivity is not stable, neutral, or just. It is shaped by systems that already exclude. Civil rights exist to interrupt that exclusion, not to reward those who can temporarily overcome it. Neurodivergent people do not need to earn their place by performing well enough. They already belong. Justice begins there.

Reflection Questions

What assumptions about human worth are embedded in the way productivity is discussed in your workplace, school, or community?

When have you seen access or support offered only when someone could “prove” their value through output or performance?

How is productivity defined in the systems you move through, and whose cognitive styles does that definition privilege?

What happens to people in your environment when their capacity fluctuates due to burnout, illness, caregiving, or distress?

In what ways are neurodivergent people praised when they overperform and blamed when they cannot sustain that level of output?

How does tying rights or inclusion to productivity create hierarchies within neurodivergent communities themselves?

What kinds of labor are invisible or devalued when productivity is measured narrowly, and who performs most of that labor?

How much time and energy do neurodivergent people spend managing, masking, or recovering in order to appear productive?

What changes when you view productivity as an interaction between a person and a system rather than as an individual trait?

Where do you see productivity language used to justify exclusion, discipline, or withdrawal of support?

How might your understanding of burnout shift if it were seen as evidence of systemic harm rather than personal limitation?

What risks are created when access to housing, healthcare, or employment is treated as conditional on sustained output?

How does a productivity-based framework obscure questions of power, coercion, and choice?

What would it mean to design systems that assume variable capacity rather than constant performance?

How might your own relationship to work change if dignity and access were not tied to output?

Where have you internalized the idea that you must earn rest, support, or belonging through productivity?

How does rejecting productivity as the basis for rights challenge dominant economic or cultural narratives?

What responsibilities shift when justice, rather than usefulness, becomes the standard?

What would it look like to defend neurodivergent rights without invoking talent, innovation, or economic benefit?

What feels most uncomfortable about separating rights from productivity, and what might that discomfort be revealing?