This compendium has been prepared by the
ILO Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the InFocus Programme on Skills, Knowledge and Employability. Its preparation was made possible by the resources provided by the project Employment of People with Disabilities - the Impact of Legislation, funded by the Government of Ireland.
The descriptions of the practices used by countries to compile their statistics on the employment situation of persons with disabilities have been prepared on the basis of information included in a special database. This database contains the results of a worldwide survey conducted by the Bureau in 2003 to gather methodological information on statistics that are currently available at country level. The information has also been used to analyse the methodologies which will later be taken into account by the Bureau in developing recommendations in this area.
The
ILO Bureau of Statistics wishes to thank all ministries of labour and national statistical offices that provided information. Their cooperation has been valuable in establishing and updating the database and in preparing the descriptions. We also wish to thank the
ILO/Development Cooperation Ireland project for providing resources for the design and data entry of the database.
There is strong policy interest in establishing and monitoring the impact of legislation to promote employment opportunities for people with disabilities. However, useful data on the employment situation of this population group is rarely available at the required level of detail and periodicity; in a number of countries there are currently no data at all on employment status in conjunction with disability.
This Compendium describes the methodologies currently in use in 95 countries to compile such statistics. The
ILO Bureau of Statistics, in collaboration with the
ILO Disability Programme within the InFocus Programme on Skills, Knowledge and Employability, has conducted a worldwide survey to analyse the different approaches currently used. A questionnaire was sent to ministries of labour and national statistical offices in early 2003, aimed at collecting information about the availability of statistics of disabled persons, especially their employment situation.
The results show that countries mainly rely on population censuses and household surveys to compile these statistics, which means that information is generally collected at 5- or 10-yearly intervals, or for one point in time only. According to the country replies, these sources provide detailed data on employment status, and generally take into account the relevant international standards dealing with employment and unemployment statistics. It has been found that the sources usually use definitions of disability that come from national legislation or that have been developed by national statistical offices, ministries and/or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) concerned with disability; less than 50 per cent of the countries are using the relevant international standards1 dealing with statistics on disability.
For the future establishment or improvement of statistics on the employment situation of people with disabilities, it would be useful for countries to select a data source and periodicity of data collection on the basis of the purpose of the statistics to be compiled from it. The work of the Washington City Group (WCG) should be taken into account in this connection. WCG is planning to develop a set of general disability measures, suitable for use in censuses, sample based national surveys, or other statistical formats by using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (
ICF) issued by the World Health Organisation.
