Disabled teens 'under-achieving'

Disabled people are less likely to be working, researchers said

Teenagers with disabilities get lower qualifications and have more trouble finding jobs, a study suggests.

Research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that pupils with disabilities have high aspirations but that these are often not realised.

Disabled people who do find work are also likely to be paid less than others, the study said.

And there is a widening gap in terms of aspiration and achievement as people move into their 20s.

The researchers studied data from the British Cohort Study of 1970 and parts of the Youth Cohort study of pupils of school leaving age born in 1982/3 and 1984/5.

They focussed on people with both physical disabilities and mental health problems.

Lower qualifications

They found that at 16 that there was no difference in the educational, work and earnings aspirations of people with disabilities and others.

But they found that disabled teenagers were less likely to get on the course they wanted (half did so, compared to three-fifths of non-disabled people).

By the age of 18 or 19, the highest level qualification of nearly half of disabled young people was NVQ 1 (equivalent to a D or under in GCSES), while just over a quarter of people without disabilities were at this level.

By the age of 26, people with disabilities were four times as likely to be unemployed as others.

Those who were in work were earning 11% less than non-disabled people with the same level of education.

Report author Tania Burchardt said: "It has been a struggle for young disabled people to gain recognition of their potential and to develop positive aspirations for playing useful roles in adult life. That achievement is certainly to be celebrated.

"But the fact that equality of opportunity in turning those aspirations into reality is still far from realised leaves no room for complacency."