Disability Inclusion in the Workplace, Explained: The Data, the Wage Gap, and What the EAA Requires
1.3 billion people live with a disability, and the ILO finds a 12% wage gap. Here is what workplace disability inclusion involves and what the EAA requires.
An estimated 1.3 billion people, or 16% of the world’s population, experience significant disability, according to the World Health Organization’s disability and health fact sheet, last updated March 7, 2023. In the workplace, that population faces a documented employment and pay gap: an August 27, 2024 working paper from the International Labour Organization (ILO), “A study on the employment and wage outcomes of people with disabilities,” found workers with disabilities earn 12% less per hour than other employees on average — a gap that widens to 26% in low- and lower-middle-income countries — and that only about 3 in 10 people with disabilities participate in the labor market at all.
What the data shows
The ILO working paper found that 9 percentage points of the 12% average wage gap could not be explained by demographic factors such as age, education, or occupation, pointing to a residual gap tied more directly to disability status itself. Among the 14 countries for which the ILO had gender-disaggregated wage data, women with disabilities faced an additional 6% gender pay gap in developed countries and 5% in developing countries, layering on top of the disability wage gap. The WHO fact sheet documents related health disparities: people with disabilities die up to 20 years earlier than those without, face twice the risk of conditions including depression, asthma, diabetes, stroke, and obesity, and — for women with disabilities specifically — are 2 to 4 times more likely to experience intimate partner violence. The WHO identifies exclusion from employment as one contributing factor to these health inequities, linking workplace inclusion directly to health outcomes rather than treating it as a separate issue.
What the European Accessibility Act requires
Directive (EU) 2019/882, the European Accessibility Act (EAA), reached its compliance deadline on June 28, 2025. The directive applies broadly to e-commerce services offered to EU consumers, regardless of whether the provider is based in the EU, covering the online sale of products and services and every step leading to a completed transaction. Covered organizations must make websites, including mobile apps, “perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust”; provide support services such as help desks that can address accessibility questions and assistive-technology compatibility; disclose accessibility information about products and services when a producer or provider makes that information available; ensure identification, electronic signature, and payment processes meet the same accessibility standard; and publish a written and oral accessibility notice or statement. While framed around e-commerce and digital services rather than physical workplaces specifically, the EAA sets a baseline for digital accessibility that affects internal tools and platforms employees with disabilities use, alongside customer-facing services.
How companies are organizing around this issue
The Valuable 500, launched at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in January 2019, is the largest corporate coalition focused specifically on disability inclusion. Member companies commit publicly to advancing disability inclusion across employees, customers, and supply chains — through actions such as appointing disability specialists, forming employee resource groups, increasing representation of disabled staff, and improving digital accessibility. As of its most recent published figures, 500 organizations have joined, including 36 of the FTSE 100, 46 of the Fortune 500, and 28 of the Nikkei index, with combined member revenue exceeding USD 8 trillion and more than 20 million employees across 36 countries.
What OECD country-level data adds
The ILO’s global wage-gap figures are not broken down consistently by individual country, but the OECD tracks this at the country level for its member economies. The OECD’s “Disability, Work and Inclusion” report and a December 2025 OECD working paper, “Measuring Disability Employment Gaps”, provide employment-gap figures for individual OECD countries, allowing comparison between, for example, Nordic countries with more established disability-employment policy and countries with less developed frameworks — a level of national detail the global ILO and WHO figures above do not provide.
What remains unresolved
Neither the WHO fact sheet nor the ILO working paper identifies a global employment-rate figure broken down consistently by country income level in the way the wage-gap data is broken down, meaning comparisons of labor-market participation across regions rely on the more limited country-level data each source could access. The EAA’s accessibility requirements apply to digital products and services rather than setting a directly enforceable workplace-accessibility standard, so the extent to which its digital accessibility baseline translates into internal employer practice is not addressed by the directive’s text itself.
Sources: World Health Organization’s disability and health fact sheet, “A study on the employment and wage outcomes of people with disabilities,”, The Valuable 500, “Disability, Work and Inclusion”, “Measuring Disability Employment Gaps”
Featured image: photo by Ivan S on Pexels (free Pexels license).
For more on this topic, see our explainer on the Center for Universal Design’s seven principles.
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I specialize in sustainability education, curriculum co-creation, and early-stage project strategy. At WINSS, I craft articles on sustainability, transformative AI, and related topics. When I’m not writing, you’ll find me chasing the perfect sushi roll, exploring cities around the globe, or unwinding with my dog Puffy — the world’s most loyal sidekick.
