It’s bad enough that the percentage of American adults at work has dropped to 58.2%, a low not seen since 1983, but if you were hiring and you had the choice between someone from a loving, stable environment and someone from an abusive one, which one would you choose?

It’s a heavy question, I know. You may never know either way and you may also claim that it doesn’t make any difference to you as an employer anyway.

But as children grow older, it usually makes a huge difference — the new toy is preferred over the used, possibly broken one — the same filtered lenses we end up using to select friends, lovers and prospective employees.

My two daughters are currently Toy Story junkies (and I write that with nothing but fatherly love and admiration). And although they’re still way too young to get all the adult subtleties, those of us older and hopefully wiser who have watched the series know how sweet it is and how the themes of teamwork and support as well as second, even third chances in life are important and empowering for us all.

So earlier this week when I read my dear friend’s question in her post Employing Survivors of Domestic Violence – Ending the Cycle (Kim Wells, Executive Director of the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence), it got me asking the question at the top.

Her question was this: What if work itself is a protective factor for survivors of domestic violence and their children?

According to a new study by University of Missouri researcher Dr. Kim Anderson: Certain protective factors foster resilience and increase the likelihood that the cycle of violence will end for women who, as children, were exposed to their mothers’ battering. She found that women are less likely to suffer from PTSD if they are more resilient, or better able to overcome adversity, and that resiliency was enhanced if mothers were employed full-time — that is, gainful employment has a positive influence on their children’s recovery from witnessing domestic violence.

When my sister and I were my daughters’ ages, very little and very vulnerable, we lived with and witnessed domestic violence. After leaving my abusive father, my mother worked full-time in a decent job she enjoyed, and I believe this is one of the reasons why her resiliency strengthened — that full-time job that gave her independence and the ability to provide for my sister and me.

Although she didn’t have much formal higher education, my mother went on to some fulfilling careers afterwards and that inspired us to do the same. My sister and I even completed our college degrees, the first in our family to do so.

Unfortunately according to Dr. Anderson, recent financial cuts in domestic violence services and advocacy programs have made it difficult to provide abused women with the resources they need to recover from violent incidents. She recommends advanced job training and opportunities for higher education to help abused women attain sustainable employment.

And the fact that workers without college degrees find well-paying jobs scarce in the modern U.S. economy these days. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 25.3 million Americans over age 25 without high-school diplomas: Only 9.8 million, or less than 40% of them, were working in June. About 1.6 million said they were looking for work; the rest weren’t even looking.

So, if you knew they were broken, would you hire them?

My answers for those in people management are:

Support local women’s centers and domestic violence services. Volunteer your time to provide essential job training, skills development and emotional intelligence development. Encourage the broken to go back to school for higher ed and provide them with insightful resources to do so. Don’t hire them just because, hire them because they’re qualified and the fact that you had a hand in empowering qualification.

Give those qualified a second chance.