Reports on Disability and Accessibility in Canada
Earnings pay gap among persons with and without disabilities, 2019

Key findings

• Among those aged 16 years and older, persons with disabilities earn 21.4% less than persons without disabilities.
• Looking by disability type, the pay gap was greatest between persons with cognitive disabilities and persons without disabilities (46.4%).
• Differences in earnings were also seen by sex, as both men and women with disabilities earned less than their counterparts without disabilities.
• Earnings differed between full-time workers with and without disabilities, but were similar among part-time workers with and without disabilities.
• Among the working-age population (aged 25 to 64 years), the disability pay gap was similar to that of the total population (22.2%).

Introduction

Employment and earnings can be a key part of an individual’s overall economic well-being. Persons with disabilities often face barriers around employment, resulting in lower rates of employment, lower earnings, a decreased capacity to work full-time or higher rates of involuntary part-time work.^{Note Note Note} One priority area of the Accessible Canada Act is to identify, remove and prevent barriers within employment. As barriers within employment are removed and prevented, the disparity in income and earnings between persons with and without disabilities is expected to lessen.  

The difference in annual earnings between different population groups, for example men and women or persons with and without disabilities, is part of understanding economic inequities. Economic inequities have implications for health and well-being, as income is often considered to be the most important social determinant of health.^Note

Pay gap analysis is a commonly used technique which summarizes differences in earnings between populations into a single statistic. The gender pay gap is commonly used to represent pay inequity between men and women, which contributes to the overall understanding of gender inequality.^Note There have been some studies on the disability pay gap, which have highlighted a variety of contributing factors, including job requirements and characteristics, disability type, severity or time of onset, discrimination and sociodemographic characteristics of workers.^{Note Note}

Using data from the 2019 Canadian Income Survey (CIS)^Note , this report examines the pay gap between persons with and without disabilities by looking at different sociodemographic factors and employment characteristics.

Persons with disabilities earn less on average than persons without disabilities

In 2019, mean annual earnings among Canadians aged 16 years and older were lower for persons with disabilities ($43,400) compared with persons without disabilities ($55,200; Table 1). This results in a 21.4% pay gap between the two groups, meaning persons with disabilities earn about 21.4% less than their counterparts without disabilities.



While average earnings and the pay gap are important measures of differences in earnings, it is also valuable to examine the distribution of earnings. Analysis of the distribution of income can highlight inequalities that may be less obvious with other measures. The difference in earnings between persons with and without disabilities persists across most of the earnings distribution (Chart 1). A higher proportion of persons with disabilities (30.1%) had employment income that fell under $20,000 than persons without disabilities (23.2%). Conversely, persons without disabilities (12.1%) were almost twice as likely to have earnings of $100,000 and over, compared with their counterparts with disabilities (6.2%). These findings are consistent with past research that has found that persons with disabilities are often underrepresented in the higher income levels and more likely to live below the poverty line.^Note

Data table for Chart 1



Data table for Chart 1
Table summary
This table displays the results of Data table for Chart 1. The information is grouped by Employment income (appearing as row headers), Persons with disabilities and Persons without disabilities (reference category), calculated using percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).

Employment income	Persons with disabilities	Persons without disabilities (reference category)
	percent
Under $20,000	30.1Note *	23.2
$20,000 to $39,999	23.8Note *	19.7
$40,000 to $59,999	20.0	20.8
$60,000 to $79,999	13.0Note *	15.3
$80,000 to $99,999	6.9Note *	9.0
$100,000 and over	6.2Note *	12.1
Note * significantly different from reference category (p < 0.05) Return to note * referrer Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Income Survey, 2019.

A closer look at disability types^Note revealed more differences in terms of earnings and the pay gap. While each disability type had lower average annual earnings when compared to persons without disabilities (Table 2), persons with certain disability types fared worst. Persons with cognitive disabilities earned over 46% less and those with mental health-related disabilities earned 31% less than persons without disabilities. The gap with persons without disabilities narrowed for those with physical (20.7%), hearing (12.3%) or seeing disabilities (12.3%).



The disability pay gap persists among both women and men

Differences in annual earnings existed between persons with and without disabilities when analyzed among men and women^Note . Men with disabilities were more likely to have lower mean annual earnings than men without disabilities ($48,700 as compared to $64,300), as were women with disabilities as compared to women without disabilities ($38,900; $45,100, respectively; Table 1). Among men, the resulting pay gap between persons with and without disabilities was 24.3%, while among women, it was 13.7% between the two populations.

Conversely, when the gender pay gap was examined by disability status (Table 3), women with disabilities earn approximately 20% less than men with disabilities. Among persons without disabilities, women earn almost 30% less than men.



The pay gap differed when examined by age group, as the gap was wider among older age groups compared to younger age groups (Table 1). Among the younger workers (25 to 34 years), persons with disabilities earned 14% less than persons without disabilities. Whereas, among the older workers (45 to 64 years), persons with disabilities earned about 27% less than their counterparts without disabilities.

Higher levels of education are often associated with higher employment rates and earnings. Among both persons with and without disabilities, average earnings increased as educational attainment increased (Table 1). In addition, among those with similar levels of education, persons with disabilities had lower earnings than persons without disabilities. The pay gap between persons with and without disabilities was greater among those with some postsecondary education (20.9%) and those with a bachelor’s degree or higher (16.0%), compared to those with a high school education or less (10.9%).

Persons with disabilities are more likely to work part-time, but have similar annual earnings to part-time workers without disabilities 

In terms of work schedule, persons with disabilities were less likely to work full-time and more likely to work part-time when compared to persons without disabilities (Table 4). In addition, full-time workers with disabilities earned less ($56,100) on average than their counterparts without disabilities ($67,300; Table 5).

In contrast, among part-time workers, there was no difference in average annual earnings between persons with and without disabilities. The pay gap between persons with and without disabilities was wider among full-time workers, compared to part-time workers. Full-time workers with disabilities earned 16.6% less than full-time workers without disabilities.

 

While persons with disabilities working part-time were more likely to report wanting full-time work^Note than persons without disabilities, there was no difference in average earnings between persons with and without disabilities who wanted full-time work.

A similar pattern exists when annual earnings and the pay gap are examined in terms of the usual number of hours worked per week. There were no differences in mean earnings between persons with and without disabilities who worked less than 30 hours per week; however, there were differences among those that worked 30 hours or more. Among those who worked 30 hours to less than 40 hours a week, persons with disabilities earned about 17% less than persons without disabilities. The gap was even larger among those working 40 hours or more a week, as persons with disabilities made almost 21% less than their counterparts without disabilities.

In both permanent and temporary positions, persons with disabilities earn less than their counterparts without disabilities

Tenure, that is the time spent at one’s current job, can affect earnings. When looking at job tenure, there were once again differences between persons with and without disabilities. Regardless of tenure, persons with disabilities earned less on average than their counterparts without disabilities. The largest pay gap between persons with and without disabilities was among those who had been at their current job for five to less than ten years (25.4%).

The likelihood of being in a union or covered by a collective agreement did not differ by disability status. In other words, workers with disabilities were equally likely to be in unionized jobs or covered by a collective agreement than their counterparts without disabilities. However, average earnings were lower for persons with disabilities than persons without disabilities in both situations. The pay gap was greater among those who were not a union member or not covered by a collective agreement, as persons with disabilities earned 25.7% less than persons without disabilities.

In terms of permanent or temporary job status^Note , persons with and without disabilities were equally likely to be permanently or temporarily employed. However, once again there were differences in mean earnings between the two populations among those with permanent jobs and non-permanent jobs. Persons with disabilities in permanent positions had lower average earnings ($50,900), compared with those without disabilities ($64,000), resulting in persons with disabilities earning 20.5% less than persons without disabilities. A similar earnings gap was observed for those in non-permanent positions, as persons with disabilities earned less on average and had a pay gap of 17%, when compared to persons without disabilities.

The disability pay gap among the working-age population is similar to that of the total population

The disability pay gap was examined among the core working age population, as this is another common way to analyze the pay gap. Past research on the gender pay gap has demonstrated that it is similar for both for the total population and working-age population.^Note

Among those aged 25 to 64 years, persons with disabilities ($49,700) earned less on average than persons without disabilities ($63,900), resulting in 22.2% pay gap between the two populations. These findings are similar to those of the total population in terms of differences in both average annual earnings and the pay gap between persons with and without disabilities.  

Conclusion

Identifying and understanding inequalities in income is key to tracking progress to a more inclusive Canada. The findings from this report demonstrate that there is a notable difference in earnings between persons with and without disabilities. In addition, this disability pay gap persisted when examined by sex, age group and educational attainment.

The findings also highlight differences in the disability pay gap by several employment characteristics. Differences in earnings existed between persons with and without disabilities among full-time workers but not among part-time workers. Persons with disabilities earned less than persons without disabilities when examined by duration at current job, union status and permanent or temporary job status.

Future work could examine the disability pay gap trend over time, particularly to examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and to measure the impact of the Accessible Canada Act implementation. In addition, more detailed analysis could be done examine the “adjusted” pay gap and explore how much of the gap is explained by various sociodemographic and occupational characteristics.

Data source, methods and definitions

This report used the Canadian Income Survey (CIS), which is a national cross-sectional survey developed to provide a portrait of the income and income sources of Canadians, with their individual and household characteristics. It is an annual survey, usually collected from January to June. The reference period is the calendar year prior to collection. The CIS is administered to a sub-sample of Labour Force Survey respondents. The resulting sample size for the CIS is about 72,000 households.

The 2019 CIS identifies persons with disabilities using the short version of Disability Screening Questions (DSQ), which are based on the social model of disability, and were asked of one randomly selected household member aged 16 years and older. The DSQ first measure the degree to which difficulties are experienced across 10 domains of functioning, then ask how often daily activities are limited by these difficulties. Only persons who report a limitation in their day-to-day activities are identified as having a disability.

This report applies the same methodology as is used for the gender pay gap to analyze the disability pay gap. There are several approaches that can be used for this measure, which can differ depending on who the estimates are based on, the type of earnings included and how earnings are calculated. This analysis takes the more inclusive approach of considering mean annual earnings of all workers (regardless of full or part-time status).

Within this report, the disability pay gap is based on the persons with disabilities – persons without disabilities earnings ratio, which is calculated by dividing average annual earnings of persons with disabilities by the average annual earnings of persons without disabilities. This ratio is then subtracted from 1 and multiplied by 100, resulting in the pay gap presented as the percentage of how much less persons with disabilities earn compared to persons without disabilities. The analysis includes only paid employees during the reference year, therefore self-employed individuals are excluded.