Disability, Labour Market Participation and the Effect of Educational Level: Compared to What?

Abstract

The aim of the article is to discuss the relationship between disability, educational level and employment, and to scrutinize how disability and education interact to impact employment -a link that has been observed in several studies. The article uses analyses of EU-SILC data to illustrate that conclusions about whether higher education reduces labour-market inequalities between disabled and non-disabled, depends in part on the analytical strategies used, which in turn are guided by implicit or explicit theoretical assumptions about the mechanisms regulating the relationship between education and employment opportunities. The article argues that the issue is more multifaceted than recognised by Nordic disability policy, which claims that higher education is the route to reducing inequalities and enhancing societal inclusion for disabled people.Keywords: Disability; living conditions; education; labour market participation; social inclusion Introduction Participation in the labour market through employment is regarded as one of the cornerstones of active citizenship for disabled people (Sainsbury and Coleman-Fountain 2013). In research and policy on disability and labour market participation, it is considered as established knowledge that educational level is one of the most important predictors of employment for persons with disabilities, and that it is therefore an effective way to improve disabled people's chances in the labour market and reduce the systematic differences in employment rates between disabled and nondisabled people. The question of which factors may increase disabled people's competitiveness in the labour market is of political as well as academic interest, particularly in economic downturns, when there is increasing unemployment and higher competition for jobs.The salience of education, and in particular 'higher education', is well documented in national (Kittelsaa, Wik, and Tøssebro 2015;Wik 2010;Molden, Wendelborg, and Tøssebro 2009;Grue and Finnvold 2014;Bliksvaer and Hanssen 2006;Finnvold 2013;Legard 2013;Bø and Håland 2015) as well as in international studies (Holland et al. 2011;Zaidi 2011;OECD 2003). Research has shown that education is the most important predictor of employment for disabled people, but has also found a statistical interaction in the relationship between disability, education and work propensity: educational level is substantially more important for the employment rate for disabled people than for non-disabled people. This effect is often found to be around twice as high for disabled compared to non-disabled (e.g. Kittelsaa et al. 2015;Tøssebro and Wik 2015), however estimates in different studies vary from 11 per cent (e.g. Bø and Håland 2015) to over 200 per cent higher (e.g. Bliksvaer and Hanssen 2006).Although there is ample documentation that educational level has a significant impact on both disabled and nondisabled people's employment rates, there is less clarity about the significance of the effect and what educational level that increases the likelihood of emp...

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