The geography of the disability employment gap: a new decomposition of spatial variation

Disabled people fare particularly badly when living in areas that are economically and socially disadvantaged; they therefore have the most to gain from distributing national prosperity more equally. The disability employment gap in Britain (2014–19) was 31 percentage points (pp), but ranged from 17 pp to 43 pp locally. Using novel techniques to decompose spatial variation in the gap into ‘people’ and ‘place’ effects, we find that the key drivers are local population characteristics and economic structure, including the nature of labour demand and the industry composition of the local area. Spatial variation in healthcare, social capital, employer disability policies and the stringency of welfare provision do not explain the gap. The importance of place effects suggests that locally adapted policies to narrow the gap may be more effective than a one-size-fits-all approach. In turn, this requires sufficient capacity at the local level in terms of power, resource and expertise.