Adolescent Disability, Post-16 Destinations, and Early Socioeconomic Attainment: Initial Evidence from Next Steps

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in the prevalence of adolescent disability. However, research on the life-course transitions and trajectories of disabled adolescents remains sparse. This working paper addresses the lack of longitudinal evidence surrounding school-to-work transitions of disabled young people in England. We analyse longitudinal data from Next Steps in order to provide a descriptive analysis of post- 16 transitions and early socioeconomic attainment of disabled young people in England. Our analysis moves beyond existing studies by examining the whole range of post-16 destinations, and by exploring variation between different disability categories wherever possible. We also examine whether disability differentials in post-16 destinations and economic activity in early adulthood vary by social class, ethnicity, and gender, highlighting opportunities for intersectional analyses. Overall, our results show substantial disability differentials in post-16 destinations. We find that disabled young people are less likely to stay in post-16 education and more likely to experience unemployment compared to non- disabled peers. Results reveal inequalities in the type of post-16 education young people follow too, with disabled cohort members more likely to be in general Further Education colleges and less likely to attend school sixth forms and sixth form colleges, as well as university, compared to students with no long-standing limiting conditions and/or learning difficulties. We find pronounced disability gaps in young people’s main activity at age 25, documenting variations by other social divisions. We also outline avenues for future research on adolescent disability and social inequality.

Childhood disability, social class and social mobility: A neglected relationship

“…Young people whose parents only reported “English as second language” as their special educational need were not classified as disabled in our analysis. Readers are referred to Velthuis and Chatzitheochari ( 2021 ) for further details on these measures.…”