New Research on Employment of Disabled People
| Title | New Research on Employment of Disabled People |
| Author(s) | Richard Berthoud |
| Organisation | ISER at University of Essex |
| Date | 19 January 2011 |
| No. of pages | 2 on-line |
| Theme | Disability; long-term unemployment; qualifications; inequality |
| Description | This is a summary of research analysing trends over three decades and giving some insight into why it has been difficult to improve the amount of employment of disabled people even after all the advances in independent living in the last 15 years. |
| Select quotations | “There is little sign that the growth in the numbers out of work over the years has mainly been associated with minor sets of impairments.” “There is little sign that disabled people are especially sensitive to the ups and downs of the business cycle.” “Although there was a substantial shift in the ratio of incapacity-related benefit payments to disability-disadvantage up to about 1990, there is little sign that this ratio was influenced by major changes in the rules governing eligibility for benefits.” “It is commonly assumed that most of the changes in prevalence and in employment prospects have affected people with relatively minor impairments – but the research shows, on the contrary, that people with severely disadvantaging sets of health conditions have been more, not less, affected by the trends.” “…changes in disabled peoples’ employment rates or in benefit payments have not coincided with major changes in the social security rules and procedures.” “Disabled people are very sensitive to long-term geographical variations in the health of regional labour markets while non-disabled people have similar prospects, wherever they live.” “But disabled people’s employment is hardly affected by booms or busts in the national economy.” “People without educational qualifications are more likely to be disabled, and their employment rates are more affected by disability, than (at the other extreme) people with degrees. Both of these tendencies have increased in intensity over time, so that the current generation of unqualified people has very high rates of disability, and the disabled members of the group have very low rates of employment. But the number of poorly educated people in Britain has been declining over the decades, so very little of the overall growth in the number of disabled people out work can be explained by the skills effect.” |
| Link | www.iser.essex.ac.uk/2011/01/19/new-research-on-employment-of-disabled-people |
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