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The Academic Network of European Disability Experts (ANED)

Statistical indicators - Opportunities for national comparisons of data on the situation of disabled people

Wim van Oorschot presenting at meeting












During the 2008 ANED Annual Meeting Wim van Oorschot (Tilburg University) provided an introduction to the availability of comparative disability data. His task was to identify the opportunities for national comparisons between European countries regarding quantitative data on the situation of disabled people, through an annotated review of existing relevant data sources.

Presentation Wim van Oorschot:
Audio (mp3 14:17 min)
PowerPoint (ppt 210 kB)
Handout (pdf 24 kB)

He identified two broad categories of data sources: Social surveys (whether opinion surveys or socio-economic surveys) and Statistical data bases.

In relation to social surveys the issues of work, income, education are reasonably covered; political participation and discrimination have fragmentary coverage; whilst on issues of mobility, communication, cultural participation there is hardly any data.

In relation to the central issue of how disability is defined the situation is still fragmentary,  with different approaches being used at different times for different surveys. In no EU comparative surveys do the disability definition questions come close to matching the UN definition.

Aside from Eurobarometer, disability is neglected in EU-comparative surveys. Only a few contain questions on disability, and where surveys do address disability issues they are mostly concerned with the respondent's care for disabled persons. In the Eurobarometer series disability issues have been paid more attention, but still not in a systematic way: only a minority of the Eurobarometers with disability  questions also enable a comparison of  the perspectives of disabled and non-disabled respondents.

As far as statistical databases are concerned these provide reasonable coverage of the socio-economic situation.  Discrimination is reasonably covered by Eurostat data. But there is hardly any data on other field.

Recommendations:

  • Systematically analyze and use data that is available e.g. European Social Survey and  EU-SILC
  • Create EU-comparative data matrix on the basis of available data
  • Create European Data Center for Disability Data
  • Encourage the use of standardized disability questions (contained in the Minimum European Health Module) in all EU comparative surveys
  • Extend data production in other than socio-economic fields