The effects of disability on labour force status in Australia

Abstract

Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics 1998 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers, this study examines the effects of disability on four labour market outcomes: not in the labour force, unemployed, part-time employed and full-time employed. The detailed information on health available in the dataset also facilitates investigation of the dependence of effects on the characteristics of the disability, including severity, impairment type and age of onset. Disability is found to have substantial effects on labour force status, on average acting to decrease the probability of labour force participation by one-quarter for males and one-fifth for females. For males, the decrease in full-time e..