Access to work and disability: the case of Italy

This paper is an empirical study on the access to work an important factor of social inclusion for people with disability. The focus is on Italy, a country characterized by lower activity rates than other industrialized countries together with the presence of a normative setting that supports the inclusion of disabled people in paid employment though characterized by regional heterogeneity in its implementation. Labour reforms recently increased retirement age in Italy, and aged workers could be more exposed to the risk of facing disabilities limiting participation into paid work. The results of the analyses on Health status and use of health services Istat microdata show a lower probability of being employed for people with disabilities and a higher positive effect of education on their employment probability than found for not disabled. The availability of data on the type of disability allows to detect a lower employment probability for psychic disabled.