Facts and figures

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General Facts and Figures

In Britain over 10 million people have a limiting long term illness, impairment or disability - this is over 18 per cent of the population.
The most common types of impairment for adults in Britain are those associated with a difficulty in mobility, lifting and carrying.
Disabled children are more likely to have a mental condition like learning or communication difficulties, rather than a physical impairment.
The occurrence of disability increases with age - around 1 in 20 children are disabled, compared to around 1 in 7 working age adults and almost 1 in 2 people over state pension age.
One in four disabled people have two impairments and one in ten have three or more impairments.
The likelihood of multiple impairments increases with age.

Disabled people are fifty per cent less likely to hold any formal qualification compared with non disabled people.
Disabled people are more likely to be unemployed than non disabled people - in 2008, 48.4 per cent of disabled people were in employment compared with 79.6 per cent of non disabled people.
The employment rate for disabled people has risen from 38.7 per cent in 1998 to 48.4 per cent in 2008, but this varies widely for people with different types of impairments. For example, people with diabetes as their main health condition have employment rates around 70 per cent but people who have limiting mental health conditions have employment rates below 20 per cent.

25 per cent of individuals in families with at least one disabled member live in income poverty, on a before housing cost basis, compared to 16 per cent of individuals in households with no disabled member.
28 per cent of children living in families with a disabled member are at risk of income poverty and material deprivation compared to 17 per cent for all children.

Households including a disabled person are significantly more likely to live in non-decent accommodation, compared to households with no disabled person.
In 2006, 27.3 per cent of households including a disabled person lived in non-decent accommodation, compared to 25.4 per cent of households with no disabled person.

The percentage of disabled people experiencing difficulties in accessing goods or services related to their impairment or disability has decreased from 37 per cent in 2005 to 32 per cent in 2008.
Around three in four people believe there is some level of prejudice in Britain towards disabled people.

Page last reviewed: 04 November 2010