Abstract
This article presents for the first time a comparative study of the cost of disability for households in 31 European countries. In order to do so, we exploit the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, its special module on housing conditions for 2007 and 2012 and employ two alternative methodologies, one based on how difficult it is for households to make ends meet and the other related to the access of households to a set of services and assets. The comparative nature of the present analysis shows these national estimates of the cost disability from a broader perspective than previous research. One important finding of this study is that there is a significant diversity in the cost of disability across European countries, with Scandinavian countries at the top of the ranking and Eastern European states at the bottom. We discuss some possible explanatory reasons for the pattern of costs across countries found in our analysis.
Highlights
Disability is far from being a marginal phenomenon in developed countries.1 According to Eurostat, 27.8 % of European Union (EU) citizens above 16 years old suffered from a long-standing illness or health problem in 2014, whereas 8.6 % reported experiencing strong limitations in their daily activities.2 Both in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and in the EU, there is strong concern about the issue and a mandate to promote and attain the full economic and social participation of people with disabilities.3 As a reflection of this concern, in the OECD and in the EU there is a variety of disability benefit systems, regulations and coverage
Before presenting the results of the empirical analysis, we look at the main descriptive statistics, namely the proportion of households with members with disability, the average number of disabled household members and the proportion of disabled household members living with other adults (Table 3)
This study has been based on the so-called standard of living approach, using two different methodologies
Summary
Disability is far from being a marginal phenomenon in developed countries. According to Eurostat, 27.8 % of European Union (EU) citizens above 16 years old suffered from a long-standing illness or health problem in 2014, whereas 8.6 % reported experiencing strong limitations in their daily activities. Both in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and in the EU, there is strong concern about the issue and a mandate to promote and attain the full economic and social participation of people with disabilities. As a reflection of this concern, in the OECD and in the EU there is a variety of disability benefit systems, regulations and coverage. According to Eurostat, 27.8 % of European Union (EU) citizens above 16 years old suffered from a long-standing illness or health problem in 2014, whereas 8.6 % reported experiencing strong limitations in their daily activities.. According to Eurostat, 27.8 % of European Union (EU) citizens above 16 years old suffered from a long-standing illness or health problem in 2014, whereas 8.6 % reported experiencing strong limitations in their daily activities.2 Both in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and in the EU, there is strong concern about the issue and a mandate to promote and attain the full economic and social participation of people with disabilities.. As a reflection of this concern, in the OECD and in the EU there is a variety of disability benefit systems, regulations and coverage Some of these policies address the reintegration of disabled people into the labour market, while others aim to compensate individuals with disabilities..
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