Disability employment penalties in Britain

Abstract

Economic disadvantage is an increasingly important component of the social position of disabled people.This article uses a large-scale and detailed survey of disabled people as an empirical platform for a discussion of their employment outcomes. It is well-established that disabled people vary in the nature and severity of their impairments, but the shape of the relationship between disability and employment cannot be predicted unambiguously from theory, and has been subject to little analysis. A new measure of `disability employment penalties', taking account of other influences on labour market position, encourages a broader view of disadvantage across distinct social constructs including gender and ethnicity.