Employment Statistics of Persons with Disabilities in Russia

Ensuring the equal employment opportunities for persons with disabilities is one of the priorities of public support for people with disabilities in Russia. This determines the need for detailed, reliable and timely statistics on the position of persons with disabilities in the labor market. The authors analyzed the content and quality of statistics collected in this area, considering, in particular, the recent methodological, organizational and statistical innovations - inclusion of the questions about disability status in the key population surveys and creation of the Federal Register of Disabled Persons (FRD).

The article notes that to date, estimates of the employment rate of persons with disabilities on the basis of administrative data and labor force survey differ, which justifies the need for an additional analysis of the methodology of these indicators. Thus, data of the FRD contains information about all people with disability status in Russia, but information on their employment covers mostly employment in the formal sector. While the population survey data, according to the authors, on the contrary, make it possible to take into account allforms of employ¬ment, but face the problem of underestimating of people with disabilities due to the design of the questions used, the reluctance of individuals to declare disability, and due to the fact that some groups of people with disabilities are less likely to be respondents of the surveys. In addition, the administrative data and the labor force survey data differ in the length of the reference period and methodology of calculation of annual indicators.

According to the authors analysis, administrative data reflects the number of employed persons with disabilities more objectively, while for detailed characteristics of disabled people position in the labor market population survey data may be used.

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