A demographic, employment and income profile of Canadians with disabilities aged 15 years and over, 2017

This now archived profile article is the first main release by Statistics Canada based on findings from the 2017 Canadian Survey on Disability. It is divided into three sections - demographics, employment, and income - and provides a general snapshot on persons with disabilities to inform on emerging government priorities (such as Opportunity for All: Canada's First Poverty Reduction Strategy; Government of Canada, 2018) and community interest in the areas of disability prevalence, labour market participation, and income inequality.

Highlights include: (1) in 2017, one in five (22 per cent) of the Canadian population aged 15 years and over - or about 6.2 million individuals - had one or more disabilities; (2) the prevalence of disability increased with age, from 13 per cent for those aged 15 to 24 years to 47 per cent for those aged 75 years and over; (3) women (24 per cent) were more likely to have a disability than men (20 per cent); (4) among those aged 25 to 64 years, persons with disabilities were less likely to be employed (59 per cent) than those without disabilities (80 per cent); (5) as the level of severity increased, the likelihood of being employed decreased; (6) among those with disabilities aged 25 to 64 years who were not employed and not currently in school, two in five (39 per cent) had potential to work, representing nearly 645,000 individuals with disabilities; (7) persons with more severe disabilities (28 per cent) aged 25 to 64 years were more likely to be living in poverty than their counterparts without disabilities (10 per cent) or with milder disabilities (14 per cent); and (8) among those with disabilities aged 15 to 64 years, lone parents and those living alone were the most likely to be living in poverty among any type of household living arrangements, and since eight in ten lone parents were women, the high risk of living in poverty in this group disproportionately affected women.

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