Unpacking the disability employment gap

This project investigated the contributing factors to the longstanding disability employment gap (DEG) in the UK.

Why is this Important?

The employment rate of disabled people in the UK was 27 percentage points lowed than for non-disabled people in 2022. Many disabled people say they want to work, suggesting that this gap is too large. Work is key to poverty reduction, and persistent worklessness among some groups in society is an underlying cause of inequality and reduced opportunities. Good work can also have benefits for health and well-being. 

The research focused on: the role of education in the DEG, variation in the DEG across local areas, and trends in the DEG over time. Data from the nationally representative Annual Population Survey (APS) of households (2014-2022) was combined with additional data on local area level characteristics.

The role of education in the DEG

While most of the DEG is related to ‘structural’ barriers (pertaining to the workplace and society in general), improving education could be a specific policy lever to narrow the DEG. The research found that eliminating the educational disparities between disabled and non-disabled people could close the DEG by 12%.

The geography of the DEG

The DEG varies widely across Great Britain, ranging from 16.9pp in Buckinghamshire to 42.5pp in North Lanarkshire (over the period 2014-2019). The key drivers of spatial variation in the DEG are local population characteristics and economic structure, particularly industry composition.  All else equal, areas with a high proportion of workers in ‘knowledge services’ have a smaller DEG, as do areas with a high proportion of elementary occupations (such as cleaning, security and hospitality occupations).

Trends in the DEG

Over the period 2014-2022, the DEG fell from 32pp to 27pp and yet the proportion of disabled people in the working-age population increased from 18% to 23%. One explanation for this paradox is that more people are identifying as disabled due to mild mental health conditions, and they also have relatively high employment rates. This explanation does not fit with the data. Instead, there are two equal and opposite health effects: declining severity, which raises employment, and increased prevalence of mental health conditions, which lowers employment compared with physical health conditions.

Policy implications

• The priority should be on making sure all adults have some qualifications, which alone could close the DEG by 6%. 
• Attracting high value investment in the knowledge sector to ‘left behind’ areas could boost the employment prospects of disabled people to a greater extent than their non-disabled counterparts and so reduce the DEG. 
• Rather than changes in health, it is rising education levels that have helped to close DEG, accounting for 37% of the fall over 2014-2022.

What is the Disability Employment Gap?

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