Unpacking the Disability Employment Gap
Unpacking the Disability Employment Gap is a 3-year project funded by the Nuffield Foundation to investigate the gap in employment between disabled and non-disabled people in the UK.
Download the final project report here.
We are grateful to the for funding this research.
On Thursday 27 June 2024, we hosted an end-of-project event at the Nuffield Foundation in London, in front of a cross-sector audience of stakeholders and experts. We presented our own research and also listened to presentations from a panel of discussants: Professor James Banks (University of Manchester and IFS), Louise Murphy (Resolution Foundation), Luke Munford (University of Manchester), David Finch (Health Foundation) and Leticia Veruete-Mckay (Scope). You can the presentation slides and watch a video recording of the whole event below.
Our latest unpacks the geographic variation in the Disability Employment Gap across Great Britain. The full working paper relating to this research is available here.
Also, please see our earlier Policy Brief on the importance of education in explaining and reducing the Disability Employment Gap. The full working paper relating to this research is available here.
Andrew Bryce explains the Disability Employment Gap and introduces our research to understand the factors that affect the employment of disabled people. Not all disabled people are the same, so it is important to understand how the barriers to employment might be different depending on age, type of health condition and severity of impairment.
This animated video and infographic explains the Disability Employment Gap and why it is important, and shows that disabled people with a mental health condition are the least likely to be in paid work.
Download the Visual Summary of our early findings exploring the Disability Employment Gap in the UK. It points out that the Disability Employment Gap is much wider among people with low levels of education.
Selected knowledge exchange activities
Download the written evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee on the Disability Employment Gap. It shows that the recent pandemic hit disabled people the hardest with many working in sectors most impacted by the lockdown.
On 24 February 2021, Mark Bryan was among the witnesses providing evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee on the Disability Employment Gap. . Mark argued that there are different disability employment gaps by gender, education level and type of impairment, and that we need to understand the factors behind each gap. Following its inquiry, the Committee recommended that the Government should re-introduce an explicit target to reduce the Disability Employment Gap in the UK. Read the Work and Pension Committee report .