Statistics in Focus: Population and social conditions. Employment of disabled people in Europe in 2002. 2003.26

Abstract

The year 2003 is the European Year of People with Disabilities. The preliminary results of the ad hoc module on employment of disabled people of the Spring 2002 round of the Labour Force Survey provide the following estimates for persons aged 16-64 living in private households in 25 European countries: • Of those persons aged between 16 and 64 years, 44.6 million - i.e. one in six (15.7%) - stated that they had a long-standing health problem or disability (LSHPD). • Labour force participation is indeed much lower for the disabled: 78% of the severely disabled aged 16-64 are outside of the labour force as compared to 27% forthose without LSHPD. And even among those in the labour force, the unemployment rate is nearly twice as high among the severely disabled as compared to the non-disabled. Only 16% of those who face work restrictions are provided with some assistance to work. • Overall there is little difference in the prevalence of disability among males and females, while the prevalence rates of LSHPD strongly increase with age. They are higher among those with lower education, among the widowed, divorced and the inactive. • The percentage of the working-age population with LSHPD varies widely among countries, with the highest percentage (32.2%) found in Finland and the lowest in Romania (5.8%). This wide-ranging spectrum might also reflect differences in how respondents perceived the question. Although utmost attention was paid to translation of the questions, the replies could have been mediated by cultural traits