Press Statement

Preasráiteas

02 December 2021

Go to release: Income, Employment and Welfare Analysis of People with a Disability 2019

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (02 December 2021) released Income, Employment and Welfare Analysis of People with a Disability 2019. This release has been published to day in advance of the United Nations (UN) International Day of People with a Disability (03 December 2021).

This report analyses data derived from government administrative datasets which have been linked to the Census of Population 2016 and provides new insights into employment, education, housing and other outcomes in the lives of persons with a disability.

The National Disability Authority (NDA) has worked in collaboration with the CSO to inform this report. The requirement to publish data and statistics on the lives of persons with disabilities is provided for in international law. While data and statistics should always be supported by qualitative data that captures the lived experience of people with disabilities, data are necessary in order to monitor and evaluate progress in reaching goals and to allow the setting of targets.

This publication is classified as a CSO Frontier Series Publication which means particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release. What is this?

Commenting on the release, Emma Hogan, Statistician, said: “Less than half (44%) of people with a disability of working age were employed in 2019. Previous reports by CSO, ESRI and others have used the principal economic status question in Census to look at the employment rate of people with a disability. The principal economic status in Census 2016 shows that 30.2% of people with a disability are in employment. As a Frontier publication, this report uses a different method to calculate employment which is based on income and number of weeks worked and will include those who reported 'Student or Pupil', 'Retired', 'Looking after home/family' or other status as their principal economic status in Census 2016 but meet the definition of employment based on income and number of weeks worked in 2019. Separately the data shows the median income of those with a disability in employment in 2019 was €20,212. This compares the state median of €36,095 in 2018, which is the most recent available.

More than half (56%) of students with a disability studied Irish in the Leaving Certificate 2016, compared to 84% of students with no disability. More than four in five (85%) students with a disability who sat the Leaving Certificate in 2016 were enrolled in higher education or further education and training in the following three years. This compares to 84% for those without a disability.

Looking at the area of health, the data shows that almost 60% of people with a disability and aged 65 years or younger either have a GP visit car or medical card in 2019. We can also see that the average cost of a pharmacy claim for a person with a disability was just over €18 higher than the state average of €53.3 in 2016. Just over one in three (36.7%) people with a disability on the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme in 2019 were receiving a long-term disability payment.”

Dr. Aideen Hartney, Director of the National Disability Authority (NDA), commented further on the release: “The NDA welcomes the publication of this report and commends the CSO on their innovative combination of administrative and census data. This new analysis is important in contributing to monitoring the progress of policies and strategies that have an impact on the lives of persons with disabilities.”

Editor's Note:

*The requirement to publish data and statistics on the lives of persons with disabilities is provided for in international law. Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) requires State Parties to acquire the disability data and statistics that will facilitate UNCRPD implementation and its monitoring.

**This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Publication. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this experimental analysis. Publishing outputs under the Frontier series allows the CSO to provide useful new information to users and get informed feedback on these new methods and outputs, while at the same time ensuring that the limitations are well explained and understood. What is this?

For Further information contact:

Emma Hogan (01) 498 4143 or 

Kieran Culhane (01) 498 4364 / 087 183 8704

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