Employment opportunities for persons with different types of disability

Abstract

The employment status of groups with different disabilities was analysed as were potentially important moderating factors (work ability, structural and individual factors). A secondary analysis was performed on 4359 respondents with disabilities from Statistics Sweden's Labour Market Investigation. The respondents were divided into six disability groups (communicative-hearing, communicative-speech-reading, communicative-vision, psychological disability, medical disability, physical disability). Logistic regression analyses showed that the probability of being employed was highest among respondents with hearing disabilities and respondents with psychological disabilities were least likely to be employed. Being a woman (very young or old) with only primary education and with partially or very impaired work ability, reduced employment opportunities. Higher education did not increase employment opportunities for respondents with impaired work ability. In summary, the type of disability is essential for employment opportunities, and differences between disability groups cannot be explained by differences in other variables. The moderating factors studied were found to be of equal importance in all groups.