This perspective on disability data availability is one in a series of opinion pieces on labour market inclusion. This piece has been written by Arianna Vivoli and Federico Ciani (Action Research for Co-Development – ARCO) and Elisabeth Ugreninov (Oslo Metropolitan University – OsloMet). Arianna Vivoli is a Development Economist with a focus on quantitative analysis of labour economics. She holds a PhD in Development Economics from the University of Florence and Trento. She has been a researcher at ARCO since February 2022, in the Inclusive Development unit. Federico Ciani is a researcher in Development Economics (PhD) and the Coordinator of the Inclusive Development Research Unit. Elisabeth Ugreninov is a sociologist (PhD) with a focus on quantitative analysis of discrimination and inclusion in the labour market. She is an associate professor at the Faculty of Social Science at OsloMet, she is the coordinator of PATHS2INCLUDE.
_____________________________
December 3rd marks the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, a reminder of the importance of inclusion and equal opportunities in all areas of life, including employment. According to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), persons with disabilities have the right to work on equal terms. Despite progress, a recent study by Valls and colleagues (2025), in the context of the PATHS2INCLUDE project, highlights that health-related limitations remain the most significant barrier to labour market attachment across groups and periods (2019-2022). To monitor progress and ensure accountability, Article 31 of the CRPD explicitly mandates States to collect “appropriate information, including statistical and research data”, to design and implement policies that give effect to the rights enshrined in the Convention. The European Union, as a party to the CRPD, has committed itself to this obligation. The European Disability Strategy 2021–2030 is explicit: monitoring progress across Member States depends on improving statistical data on the situation of persons with disabilities. Without such data, policies risk being well-intentioned but structurally blind.
Where do we stand today when it comes to access to sufficient data and indicators to monitor persons with disabilities’ participation in employment?
Two crucial points emerge from PATHS2INCLUDE findings. First, disability—or more precisely, the limitations associated with health conditions, here used as a proxy for disability—remain one of the most significant factors shaping labour market exclusion. And not in isolation: it interacts with gender, socioeconomic background, education, and broader contextual conditions, amplifying disadvantage in ways that remain insufficiently understood (see also Vivoli et al., 2024).
But second, and this is the point of this piece, is the fact that we have had to rely on a proxy to analyse disability: the Global Activity Limitation Indicator (GALI), a measure capturing whether individuals experience limitations in “activities people usually do” due to a health problem. EU-SILC, one of the richest and longest-standing comparative databases in Europe, relies on the GALI question, which Eurostat recommends as a proxy for disability. The European Labour Force Survey (LFS) includes a disability-related question only every two years and incorporated the GALI item for the first time as recently as 2022, making historical comparisons nearly impossible. The same reliance on GALI-related questions persists in the European Social Survey (ESS).
The GALI indicator is not inherently problematic. In fact, it occupies an interesting midpoint between the medical model, where disability is understood as an attribute of the individual, stemming from a health condition, and the social model, which frames disability as the result of barriers and exclusionary environments (Grammenos, 2024). Conceptually, GALI focuses on activity: a person’s ability to execute tasks or actions. But this also exposes its main limitation. Disability does not arise from limitation alone; it emerges from the interaction between those limitations and the physical, social, and institutional barriers that shape people’s daily lives.
Some instruments capture this interaction more effectively. The European Health Interview Survey (EHIS), for example, includes questions on the use of aids and assistive devices, on the availability of reasonable accommodations, and on dimensions of participation-thus approaching disability in a more relational and contextualised way.
Yet even when disability-related data exist, comparability across countries is far from guaranteed. Eurostat provides harmonised questionnaires, but Member States retain discretion in translating and contextualising items, which can subtly but significantly alter meaning. Questions about health, disability, or stigma-laden experiences are particularly vulnerable to cultural interpretation. The result is a puzzling landscape: for instance, the share of people reporting a long-standing health problem ranges from 33.8% in Germany to just 6.8% in Romania (Valls et al., 2024). These figures are nearly impossible to interpret without understanding how respondents in each context perceive health problems, chronicity, or the social acceptability of disclosing limitations.
In short, the data gap for disability is still wide. And this gap carries a political cost. Without high-quality, comparable, and disability-centred data, we cannot assess the extent of exclusion, we cannot measure progress, and we cannot hold institutions accountable. More importantly, we cannot design labour market policies that respond to the real barriers people face.
What should be done? We propose three recommendations:
1. Collect richer data on the contexts in which people live.
To understand disability as an interaction between individual limitations and environmental barriers, surveys must capture those environments. Information on accessibility, social supports, discrimination, workplace accommodations, and community infrastructure is essential for dismantling barriers rather than merely documenting limitations.
2. Strengthen harmonisation across countries.
Translation protocols, interviewer guidance, and methodological standards must be tightened to ensure that disability-related questions mean the same thing across Member States.
3. Make greater use of data mining and secondary sources.
Administrative data, qualitative datasets, big data, and other non-traditional sources can complement survey measures and reveal patterns that traditional instruments cannot capture. Carefully designed data-mining techniques can help extract meaningful insights from existing information, improving the evidence base while new survey tools are developed.
References
Grammenos, S. (2025). European Comparative Data on Persons with Disabilities: Analysis and Trends, Data 2022.
VALLS CASAS, O., Ugreninov, E., SAMUEL, R., Bjørnshagen, V., Buttler, D., Ciani, F., … & Vivoli, A. (2024). At-risk groups in the labour market. A comprehensive overview of relevant theoretical and methodological literature, political measures, and existing data across Europe and national surveys and register data.
VALLS CASAS, O., Vivoli, A., Samuel, R., & Ugreninov, E. (2025). Mapping labour market attachment among vulnerable groups in European countries. Health-related and intersectional barriers before and after COVID-19 pandemic.
Vivoli, A., Biggeri, M., Ciani, F., Grilli, L., Ayllòn, S., VALLS CASAS, O., & SAMUEL, R. (2024). Assessing the determinants of labour market inclusion for vulnerable European citizens: an eco-systemic and multi-level approach.