Data from 34 European countries show that people without disabilities are at lower risk of poverty than people with disabilities.
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There are around 101 million people with some kind of disability living in the European Union.
That equates to 27% of the EU’s population aged 16 and over, or just over one in four adults. They face several inequalities that make their lives difficult.
The EU Commission requires that all people with disabilities enjoy an adequate standard of living, including independent living, quality social and employment services, accessible and inclusive housing, adequate social protection, participation in lifelong learning and socio-economic strengthening.
When comparing the situation of people with disabilities across Europe, there are several aspects that may need to be taken into account. Socio-economic differences between people with and without disabilities are particularly important.
Several indicators show substantial disparities for people with disabilities. We focus on these socio-economic disparities.
What is a disability?
According to Eurostat, a disability refers to limitations in carrying out certain activities, primarily due to a health problem that has existed for at least the past six months. A disabled person is someone who has difficulty with at least one basic activity, such as seeing, hearing, walking or remembering.
The prevalence of disability in Europe
According to Eurostat, the proportion of people with some kind of disability varies widely across the EU, ranging from 14.6% in Bulgaria to 38.4% in Latvia by 2022.
According to the data, disabilities are categorized into two groups: “some limitation” and “severe limitation.”
In the EU, 19.8% of people aged 16 and over reported having some kind of restriction, and 7.2% said their health problems had serious limitations to their usual activities.
In 2022, the proportion of people with severe disabilities ranged from 2.7% in Bulgaria to 10.3% in Estonia.
This was above the EU average of almost 10% in France and Germany. In the UK, 11.5% reported having a severe disability in 2018.
Why do rates of disability vary so much across Europe?
These figures are derived from self-reported data and are therefore influenced to some extent by the subjective perceptions of the respondents and their social and cultural backgrounds. Hence, their subjective nature is an important explanatory factor for the differences.
But Eurostat stressed that “these statistics are considered relevant and reliable for estimating the health status of the population.”
These statistics are extremely useful for trend analysis and measuring socio-economic disparities between people with disabilities and those without activity limitations.
Socio-economic differences between people with and without disabilities are important
Exposure to risk of poverty is one of the key socio-economic disparities between people with disabilities and those without activity limitations.
The proportion of disabled people at risk of poverty within the EU ranged from 13.6% in Slovakia to 44.4% in Estonia.
The figures were generally low in the Nordic countries (except Sweden) but high in the Baltic countries.
As poverty risk in the EU varies widely, comparing the gap between disabled and non-disabled people across countries provides more meaningful insights.
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People with disabilities are at higher risk of falling into poverty
People without disabilities are at lower risk of poverty than people with disabilities.
This trend was found in all 34 European countries for which data was available (27 EU member states, five candidate countries and two European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries).
Of the EU population with a disability, 20.5% are at risk of poverty, compared to 14.5% of people without a disability.
In absolute terms, the smallest gaps among EU Member States were in Italy and Greece (1 and 2 percentage points respectively), while the largest were in Estonia (26.5 percentage points), followed by Lithuania (21.4 percentage points), Croatia (20.3 percentage points) and Latvia (19.5 percentage points).
The gaps were largest in the Baltic States, Croatia and Bulgaria.
The absolute gap between people with and without disabilities is over 10 percentage points in 13 EU countries, revealing just how disadvantaged people with disabilities are.
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The gap was highest in the Baltic States, Croatia and Bulgaria. Notably, the gap was also significantly higher in the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, countries that perform better than many countries on the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Social Justice Index.
Italy and Greece are the countries with the smallest gap.
Looking at relative differences (ratio of disabled to able-bodied people), Italy and Greece have the smallest differences: the proportion of people at risk of poverty is just 1.1 times higher than the non-disabled.
The largest relative difference was in Croatia (2.6 times), followed by Estonia and Ireland (both 2.5 times).
This relative difference is more than double in 11 EU countries, suggesting that people with disabilities are more economically vulnerable than those without disabilities.
Unemployment rate for people with disabilities is high
The average unemployment rate for people with disabilities in the EU was 9.4% in 2022, compared to 6.1% for people without disabilities. Unemployment rates for people with disabilities were higher in all EU countries except the Czech Republic.
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In Hungary, Slovenia and Lithuania the relative difference was over 2.5, meaning that in these countries the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was more than 2.5 times higher than for people without disabilities.
The employment gap is even more pronounced
Employment rates are also an important indicator of socio-economic disparities between people with disabilities and those without.
The employment gap for people with disabilities in the EU in 2022 was 21.4 percentage points, according to a report by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) written by Angelina Atanasova, a researcher at the European Social Observatory in Brussels.
They ranged from 8.5 pp in Luxembourg to 37 pp in Ireland.
The disability employment gap is over 30 points in nine EU countries, equivalent to one in three. Ireland is led by Croatia (36 points), Belgium (35.3 points) and Lithuania (35 points).
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Luxembourg ranked last, followed by Denmark (9.9 points), Portugal (13.1 points), Italy (14 points) and Spain (14.6 points).
The employment gap for people with disabilities was higher in Germany than in the EU (24 percentage points), but slightly lower in France (20.8 percentage points).
What is the reason for such large disparities between EU countries?
This disparity “mainly reflects differences in institutional factors (such as the implementation of national anti-discrimination laws, welfare state regimes and specific social assistance policies),” Atanasova wrote in the ETUI report.
No significant improvement in employment
The disability employment gap in the EU has changed little over the past nine years and is not expected to improve significantly between 2014 and 2022.
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The gap will reach its lowest level of 21.4 percentage points in 2022, compared to 22.7 percentage points in 2014.
The data shows that people with disabilities are at a persistent disadvantage in the labour market compared to people without disabilities.
“Participation in employment is essential for people with disabilities to achieve economic independence and inclusion in society,” Atanasova wrote.
Social transfers have a significant impact on reducing poverty risk
Eurostat figures show that the impact of social transfers on poverty risk rates is large.
In 2022, 67.1% of the EU population with disabilities were at risk of poverty, but taking into account social security benefits (grants, allowances, pensions, etc.), the proportion was 20.5%.
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Disability benefits are high in Nordic countries
In Europe, the share of disability benefits in total social security expenditure is significantly lower, yet some countries allocate significant resources to people with disabilities.
In 2021, the average share of disability benefits in total social security expenditure in the EU was 6.9%.
If some EFTA and candidate countries are included, Denmark recorded the highest rate at 16.8%, followed by Norway (15.8%), Iceland (14.9%) and Luxembourg (11.4%).
Turkey has the lowest rate of disability benefits at just 3.1%, followed by Malta (3.4%), Cyprus (3.4%) and Greece (3.9%).
The proportion was higher in the Nordic countries. Among the EU’s “big four”, Germany had a slightly higher proportion than the EU, while France, Italy and Spain reported lower benefit rates.
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In nominal terms, the differences are even wider: Disability benefits ranged from €27 in Turkey to €3,162 in Norway in 2021. The EU average was €644.
These figures reflect disability benefits as a proportion of total social security expenditure. EU Member States spent around €287.8 billion on disability benefits.
The Nordic countries had the highest disability benefits per capita as well as the highest disability benefit rates.