Disadvantage facing young people with disability in Australia

In Australia, young people with disability experience disadvantage in many areas of their lives.

This fact sheet presents data on inequalities between young people aged 15 to 24 years with and without disability in Australia from 2001 to 2018. Data were sourced using the annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, to measure the level of disadvantage experienced by young people with disability across 13 indicators representing health and wellbeing, education, employment, social and community connectedness, and financial circumstances.

These data were collected before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the period 2001 to 2018, outcomes improved for young people with disability in the following areas:

• Education attainment

• Feeling safe

• Violence or property crime

• Income poverty and material hardship

For the remaining 9 indicators measured, outcomes for young people with disability stayed the same or got worse.

Inequalities between young people with disability and young people without disability decreased over this 18-year period in the following areas:

• Education attainment

• Feeling safe

• Violence or property crime

For the remaining 10 indicators, inequalities stayed the same or increased.

This fact sheet was produced by the team at the Centre of Research Excellence in Disability and Health (CRE-DH), The University of Melbourne, May 2021.

Contact information
cre-dh@unimelb.edu.au

https://credh.org.au/