Disabled people on the labour market in Norway and Sweden in 2015

This report presents figures for disabled persons in Norway and Sweden and their connection to the labour market, based on an ad hoc module of questions to the Labour Force Survey (LFS) in the respective countries. In the second quarter of 2015 the figures showed that the percentage of disabled people aged 16-64 years was about the same in Norway and Sweden - about 16 percent. But the percentage of disabled people who were employed in 2015 was 62 percent in Sweden, to 46 percent in Norway. For the populations in total the difference in the employment rate was just one percentage point, in Sweden's favour.

One of the reasons why there is a difference in the employment rates for the disabled in Norway and Sweden is differences in the characteristics of the survey. It is estimated that this explains 3.4 percentage points of the 16 percent points difference.

The conclusion is therefore that the majority of the difference in employment rate for disabled persons is due to actual differences in the labour market.

In the report we look at one of the reasons for this, namely governmental employment measures targeting the disabled. Such measures mean increasing the number of jobs specifically targeting disabled people. Figures for 2015 shows that 8 percentages of the disabled people in Sweden was on state employment measures, in Norway it was 1 percent. This is the line of work where one receives wages and therefor in theory can be considered as employed in the LFS. Including the 3.4 percentage points explained by differences in the characteristics of the survey as mentioned above, the difference in employment percentages is estimated to decrease from 16 percentage points to 6.6 percentage points. Other factors that may explain why Sweden has a higher employment rate for disabled persons are the rules for reduction in welfare benefits with an increase in labour income and in addition tax rules may be different. It has not been possible to examine the significance of such factors within the limits of this project.