Bryan, M., Bryce, A. orcid.org/0000-0002-0723-1448, Roberts, J. et al. (1 more author) (2025) The role of education in the disability employment gap. Oxford Economic Papers. gpaf016. ISSN 0030-7653
Abstract
The gap between the employment rates of disabled and non-disabled people in the UK was 33 percentage points (pp) in 2019. This is partly explained by the fact that disabled people have lower levels of education. To assess the role of education in the disability employment gap (DEG), we decompose this DEG into characteristics and structural components using Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition methods. If the average education levels of disabled people were raised to those of non-disabled people, the DEG could be reduced by 4 pp (12 per cent). This would leave a remaining gap of 11 pp (33 per cent) explained by other characteristics and 18 pp (55 per cent) attributable to structural barriers in the labour market. These results are consistent with other findings in the literature, showing educational inequalities to be an important explanation of the DEG. However, the results also highlight the continued relevance of structural barriers that are disproportionately hindering the employment prospects of disabled people.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | disability employment gap; decomposition; education |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Economics (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NUFFIELD FOUNDATION WEL/FR-000022625 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 22 Apr 2025 13:36 |
Last Modified: | 13 Jun 2025 14:19 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/oep/gpaf016 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:225619 |