Access to employment opportunities is a top priority for persons with disabilities. Article 27 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on the right to work, is one of its most detailed articles, given the impact of employment on the social inclusion processes. Yet, despite efforts and focus from governments, employers and organisations of persons with disabilities, available data tells us that persons with disabilities continue to be excluded from the labour market disproportionately.

The OECD report Disability, Work and Inclusion: Mainstreaming in All Policies and Practices is an attempt to better understand the labour market situation of people with disability and derive and propose innovative ways to improve their labour market participation. People with disability continue to face disadvantages in the labour market, resulting in considerable employment, unemployment and poverty gaps compared with people without disability. Twenty years ago, the OECD has promoted a paradigm shift in disability policy to strengthen the focus on employability and employment. Policy makers have acknowledged the need for this fundamentally different way of viewing disability policy and tried to strengthen employment elements in their approach. Labour market outcomes of people with disability, however, have changed little.

The employment rate of persons with disability remains stubbornly low. In 2019, across a set of 32 OECD countries about one in four people with high support requirements and one in two with moderate support requirements had a job. Taken together, the employment rate of people with disability was 27 percentage points lower than for people without disability, a gap that has remained constant over the past decade. At the same time, more people with disability today are seeking employment but cannot find a job. In 2019, people with disability were 2.3 times more likely to be unemployed than people without disability, compared to around two times before and soon after the global financial crisis in 2008‑09.

This chapter summarises the findings and conclusions of the OECD study on Disability, Work and Inclusion. The chapter argues that a rigorous disability mainstreaming approach is needed that affects all policies and practices. Rather than continuing to treat people with disability differently and to develop new special support tools, mainstream systems and services must be accountable for being disability-inclusive and develop the capacity to help people with health problems or disability in the same way as other clients. While the employment-oriented policy paradigm put forward by the OECD about 20 years ago remains valid, the chapter also argues that three aspects must receive more attention: helping young people with disability into employment; making people with disability competitive in the labour market; and helping much faster when people become sick or unemployed.

Using population survey data for a large number of OECD countries, this chapter presents a set of indicators to measure the social and labour market inclusion of people with disability and compare outcomes across countries and over time. Findings are mixed: while people with disability are more likely today to achieve a higher level of education, disability gaps in both employment and unemployment remain high and largely unchanged. Similarly, the high disability poverty gap has increased further, even though the large majority of people with disability who have no job receive some form of income support. Overall, these outcomes suggest that the current policy approach fails to generate highly needed improvements in the labour market position of people with disability.

Young people with disability, many of them experiencing mental health conditions, represent an increasingly large and vulnerable share of all people with disability. They require adequate social protection to thrive, but at the same time are very exposed to the work disincentives coming with social benefits. This chapter provides policy recommendations to OECD governments to support all young people with disability during their young age and in their transition to the labour market, in a disability-inclusive way.

Disability benefit programmes have seen reforms in many OECD countries. Changes have in some cases led to a halt or turnaround in the increase in the disability benefit caseload but the effects on the employment of people with disability have remained limited. Policy efforts should focus on earlier intervention, by preventing people from getting to a stage from which there is no sustainable return to work.

The rapidly changing world of work offers promising potentials to make work more accessible and more inclusive for people with disability. Work may become healthier for all as well. However, these promises will only materialise if countries take the necessary policy actions. This chapter proposes a set of five principles to help governments to do so.

Continuous skill investments are key to participate in today’s rapidly changing world of work. Yet, people with disability too often lack the necessary literacy, numeracy and digital skills. Too few participate in adult learning, further aggravating existing education inequalities. This chapter proposes actionable recommendations to OECD governments to make their adult learning systems deliver better for all – including for people with disability.