Over the past few years an extraordinary development has occurred in Ireland, which has gone broadly unnoticed. Tens of thousands of people have left the labour force due to disability. This has occurred despite the fact that the workforce, in general, has become younger and healthier on most measures and despite the fact that there have been significant positive steps towards reducing discrimination against disabled people in the workforce.
However, if you drill down into the numbers, the number of people now registered as disabled or citing a disability as the reason they can’t find work has gone through the roof.
What is happening?
These people are not included in the unemployed and they are, in effect, invisible from the statistics.
At the outset let me be clear: I do not know why this is happening. As a general rule, you would expect the proportion of those people who state in surveys that they are disabled would progress in line with growth in the general population.
A huge jump in disability – whether physical or emotional – might come if a country experienced a war or a natural catastrophe like Chernobyl. But nothing like this this has happened here, thankfully.
Yet, since 2006, there has been a 37.7pc increase in the number of people who have left the labour force citing a condition that substantially limits one or smore basic physical activities.
This is not people who have been unfortunate enough to be born with a disability, but people who have developed a disabling condition. This means 55,000 people – bigger than Waterford, the country’s fifth largest city. Between 2002 and 2006, the same figure only increased by 1pc which is less than 2,000 people.
So what has happened from 2006 to 2012 to cause 53,000 extra people to leave the labour force due to physical disability?
Meanwhile, the number of people leaving the labour force citing a psychological or emotional condition has risen even more dramatically – 88,000 people are now diagnosed with an emotional or psychological condition that is bad enough that they can’t work. This is a 27,000 rise from the same figure in 2006.
What has happened in the past few years to explain this dramatic increase?
If we look at the chart – taken from CSO data – which plots the growth in the number of people not working due to disability and the growth in the labour force itself, we see a massive deviation. This began in the late 1990s and has continued throughout the past dozen years.
In all cases, these people drop off the economic and social radar screen and politically only become an issue when something like the cut in the carer’s allowance becomes a big budgetary issue.
People on disability don’t show up in any of the places we usually look to see how the economy is doing. But the story of these programmes – who goes on them, and why, and what happens after that – is, to a large extent, an undocumented one.
The question for us is whether our population has become dramatically more unhealthy in the past few years or whether the State has recognised conditions which up until now were not regarded as conditions deemed to make people unfit for work.
These are not frivolous questions because if the answer is the former – that the Irish workforce is becoming more unhealthy – it has enormous implications for the effectiveness of the health system, the ongoing nutrition of the people and the emotional or psychological stability of the nation.
On most metrics, the evidence is that Irish people have become progressively healthier over the past two decades.
In addition, having spent so much money on the health system over the past few years, there are legitimate reasons to ask, if health budgets have gone up, why has the workforce become less healthy?
If, on the other hand, the dramatic rise in people being unfit for work is due to the increase in the diagnosis of heretofore unrecognised conditions that are sufficiently debilitating to prevent people looking for work, the dilemma is what to do to help these people improve their quality of life.
For example, once you are diagnosed with an emotional condition, is that it?
Do you remain out of the workforce indefinitely or are there programmes to treat your emotional and mental health so that you can look for a job again?
Of course, there is also the possibility that some people are seeking to have a condition diagnosed in order to stay on benefits indefinitely and to avoid their long-term benefits becoming conditional on having to go out looking for work.
What is clear from the point of view of society is that people who are unfit for work because they develop an emotional, psychological or physical ailment are an economic resource that needs to be nurtured. It isn’t enough to give them a cheque every week and forget about them.
If it becomes clear that some cases are not legitimate and are due to fabricated or exaggerated ailments, then life will be more difficult for people who really are disabled because taxpayers will come to think of all people who are stressed, bullied, immobile or injured as faking it.
Discussions on these issues tend to descend very easily into one side screaming “welfare fraud” and the other screaming “legitimate need”. These set pieces rarely produce anything other than reinforcing initial prejudices. However, a reasoned discussion as to why an increasing number of the Irish workforce are deemed unfit to work would seem like a sensible conversation to have.
Adam should subscribe!
Sigh. This mirrors a This American Life episode on disability as well. Here’s what I find interesting. We have known about the gender pay gap for decades and yet nothing has changed. Women still get paid less. Once the EU had the power to do it, they removed “gender discrimination” for car insurance and made it so women paid more for car insurance. That imbalance was corrected rather quickly. Any imbalance that benefits the poor or middle class seems to get rectified quickly. Any imbalance that benefits the rich is a hard problem that we just can’t seem to do… Read more »
The main reason is, as you mention in your article, that you will lose your job seekers benefits.
I’ve been told that if you lose your job and know that you will be out of work for a long period of time you should go sick or you will ‘use up all of your stamps’.
I don’t know how true this is.
German workers average six weeks a year in sick days. German doctors will sign you off at the drop of a hat, and its not unusual to informally request time off due to pressure and stress, and the definition of both is interpreted in the widest possible terms. Psychological services are covered by the health insurance systems, and nobody feels bad about using them. So I’d suggest the lack of shame argument is a little displaced as presented here. Empirical observation suggests that the prevalence of serious underlying psychological conditions is not worse in a city like Berlin, the largest… Read more »
Interesting topic David, as a wheelchair user out of work 3 yrs now and on Disability Allowance its fascinating to know I’m not counted in the jobless figues
Congrats David for tackling this messy subject – a lot of commentators would not have the guts. There seems to be something rotten etc.
I’d ask the following questions: • What proportion of the 55,000 extra disability claimants are ex-civil servants (out on the sick). • Is this a way to keep dole numbers appearing lower? • Is the EU involved (some number rigging scam, like the fish catch figures?) • The Banks are getting higher wages so why not get sick for a few years, they just suck from the desiccated limb of the working man. • There was Croke Park I and now Croke Park II, perhaps some people say why bother anymore, let’s give me a Croke Park Me Fein. •… Read more »
Just wondering, but how of this wuantity of peopel who are claiming disablity are formerly substance abusers ?
Ireland has a serious problem with performance degrading drugs. In particular, with alcohol.
The graph shows that something really absurd went on in respect to disability between 1996 and 2002.
It is like as if loads of people suddenly discovered they had a disabi;lity, that they did not have previously.
More than 50% of your wages being picked to pay for cushy lifestyles for single mothers, Disability travel passes for the able bodied and junkies to party is a society collapsing.
Those running the schemes don’t follow their own rules When on disability, if you ask for permission to work part time, all benefits are cut. This trains those on a disability to remain on that payment, as promises around restoration of benefits if a job doesn’t work out have proved hollow. The same on injury benefit. The occupational physicians employed by the department don’t do their job as they keep secret from the claimants the type of work for which they are deemed suitable. Dr. Leech instigated automatic rejections, where everyone with back pain is forced to appeal. You are… Read more »
David, you have found your true home with the Irish Independent. Or try the Mail.
If the people you refer to in your article weren’t classed as disabled they’d be on the dole. In effect, they are doing the unemployed a favour by reducing the competition for a vanishingly small number of jobs. It’s quite astonishing the commentators here cannot see that.
In my opinion, one reason why disability is increasing is because ‘work’ in the neo-liberal world is increasingly becoming a physiologically toxic environment where people reluctantly go and get critized, time presured, bullied and abused in exchange for money so that they can buy food and pay their bills. This toxitity was illustrated and promoted by tv programes like ‘Hells Kitchen’ , ‘Your fired’ etc. Many work places and jobs have become modern cesspits and those who chose to stay and work in the neo-cesspit too long get sick eventually. Work in the modern world is grossly diverging from being… Read more »
Nearly 40% labour force on unemployment, one parent(not working),disability payment. This is what emerges from the Government’s 2011 Report on Social Welfare numbers. See report http://www.welfare.ie/en/downloads/statsa2011.pdf The labour force is 2.23 million. 40% of the labour force is on either one parent family, illness/disability, unemployment or Supplementary welfare payment. I think the unemployment figures are masked by a huge number of welfare payments. Look at all the other welfare allowances given that are not called unemployment payments and massive numbers of people on them in 2011.The number of recipients are as follows: Total Widow(er) ,One-Parent families recipient (under age 66… Read more »
It seems as if this country has an epidemic of disability, statistically speaking.
Or maybe it is a result of social welfare being harder to get.
Hi David, No mystery here at all, unlike many subscribers here I actually rub shoulders with workers. 3 Categories come to mind, Care Assistants in Nursing Homes, Butchers in a Meat Plant, Assembly workers in a Factory. In all cases over the last 5 years working conditions have become Draconian, 13 to 9 hour days, 2 10 minute breaks, half hour maybe for lunch, all this monitored closely by camera, pay cut to the absolute minimum, generally the working atmosphere is not great. In the Case of the Care Assistants, (and this is a very good nursing home)work has become… Read more »
Hello David, Good article. Let me enlighten you however. “I do not know why this is happening” This is because your income is at a level where you are allowed to focus totally on being as productive as possible rather than hoping and praying there will be enough money to pay for breakfast for the kids tomorrow. The Irish times today has an article about kids in secondary schools being stressed and demoralised. According to the article some of those kids arrive into school not having had breakfast because no money is there to pay for it. The best thing… Read more »
At any given time, there are 100,000 people in Ireland taking part in govt “training” schemes. The UK figure, with 14 times more people is 250,000 ! Like disability benefits, it’s just another way to massage the unemployment figures. Contrast the debate in the UK media regarding the impact of eastern europeans on the labour market for young people. Here, the issue is swept under the carpet,HOW MANY ROMANIANS AND BULGARIANS WILL ARRIVE FROM JAN 1 NEXT ?
Although it might be true that certain medical conditions are now being recognized as true disabilities, they cannot alone account for the huge jump in the statistics. It seems to me it is better explained as being a sign of the times, of so many people feeling so betrayed by their politicians along with the banking system and also the Catholic Church, that a general malaise has set in, and there is no point in being honest or loyal to the system itself, and to just get from it what one can, and walk away from the rest. The current… Read more »
http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e5142
Yes, Wildata has put it perfectly: the social contract is indeed broken.
I am not sure it is broken beyond repair, but I also am not sure if there is sufficient competence and creativity and political will in government to begin to piece it back together. It all seems “every man for himself” these days.
The transatlantic financial system is on disability allowance in the order of 10’s of TRILLIONS. We must cut disability allowance for this imperial succubus before it kills us all, able-bodied or not, sucking the very life out of the economy. Those who are folding under the inhuman conditions aptly described here by posters, are victims. Imagine if all those now took to the streets with a clear message to deal with that SYSTEM, instead of simply side-issues. It looks like the true unemployment figures including disability, are a majority. Taking away the future, the essence of humanity, is the root… Read more »
Time to forget the concept of a NATIONAL ECONOMY. There is not longer any meaningful definition. When one national Group must pay the Debts of another on little more than a whim just to keep (both) their corrupt or at best power crazed and incompetent leaders in the Style, any rational “Economics” based thinking is useless and downright unhelpful. Nor is National Politics in any way relevant to any country under 25 million, like the Multiples and the Corner Shop our day is gone. Especially as in our Corner Shop the Manager works for the Multiples. But he just wants… Read more »
Draghi is talking.
The ISEQ is tanking.
[…] full article at source: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2013/04/04/the-mystery-of-disability […]
This article comes straight from the cloth of The Nasty Party.
There are enough nasty tories in Ireland who will lap it up and buy the rag it was published in. Very sad.
The economy has affected people’s health and caused some to commit suicide others are permanently ill while some claim disability yet the banks are been paid and no one is threatening to cut off their disability benefit . During the meanwhile the ghost estates remain empty while the state pays landlords rent allowances yet some are now advocating that these estates be knocked. When these estates are knocked down we will pay for the demolition and we will still pay rent allowances to landlords while continuing to dole out disability to the banks “money” which they magiced up to build… Read more »
Water charges, property tax ect FF says these will push people over the edge,the news is people are already over the edge.
You can’t get blood from a stone even if FG think you can .
If you can’t pay these things than don’t loose any sleep over this ,food ,heat,power comes first , put a sign on your house( no nazi boot boys welcome here.
Last weekend there were protests in the UK about the bedroom tax which attacks people in social housing who are claiming housing assistance The tories (The Nasty Party) are cutting the top rate for those earning +100k from 50p to 45p This is just one instance of the comparisons in attitudes to the well off and the poor. There are many others After all we have been through they show no sign up letting up and they are intent on pressing on with their psychotic free market ideology. They are the really sick ones For me this is not simply… Read more »
Everybody Wants A Degree And Why Should They Not… its time to Bring Back the Sponsored Apprenticeships… The problem with degree is that people do a degree in something which they have absolutely no comprehension of or understanding how their degree is practiced within the working environment. They spend 3/4/5 years studying at something which the colleges and others oversold using images of shiny happy people portrayed in a lab or sitting around a conference table with engineering drawing. The reality is much different the chemist ends up trapped in a space suit in some sanitised factory, day in day… Read more »
There are quite a number of studies on company failure and collapse and the health of those who work in them. All things being equal, it boils down to your ability to contribute added value and to “feel” valued. I blame 3 trends 1) Increasing compliance requirements that overload people with bureacracy and non-productive work. 2) Insurance and litigation claims who force more of 1) above and also demand the need for other “useless” functions to come into an organisation and break the link between the managed and the management. I refer here to “human resources”, “Health and Safety” and… Read more »
Potato prices up by 187% in year to January
Reciprocal altruism and freeloading, quite a hot topic. Sociobiology. As someone who’s experienced physical and mental health issues due to childhood abuse and then MTBI from a ridiculously minor car shunt, I could go on about this societal crisis all day. The physical and mental/emotional are often two sides of the same coin. I’m lucky in that I’ve always had complete support, encouragement and the full resources of the British NHS batting on my side over many years.There really is an enormous interlinked cluster of issues here, ranging from tardy diagnosis, and failure to intervene early, inability of employers to… Read more »
Canadians in Uproar Over Proposed Stealing of Their Deposits
3 Apr.(LPAC) The inclusion of a “bail-in” provision in the Canadian budget (“Economic Action Plan 2013?), released by the Ministry of Finance on March 21, set off a storm when details of the Cyprus “bail-in” bank heist emerged only days later. See the provision, appearing on page 145.
Quantitative Stealing: Coming Soon to a Bank Near You
If you liked Quantitative Easing, you’re gonna love Quantitative Stealing. This one’s to die for.
In 2012, QE (bail-out) switched to QS (bail-in), have a look at the updated Triple Curve.
Economic Stockholm Syndrome: The behavior and attitudes exhibited by victims of financial subjugation, causing then to identify with and even defend their oppressors. Q: Hey, what’s up with Matt? His Dad is on social security, his mom got laid off, his sister’s kids get free school lunches, he collects federal financial aid for college, and he only makes minimum wage working at Walmarts. Yet he keeps talking about how we need to cut taxes for the wealthy and quit spending so much on social programs. A: Yeah, he thinks he’s going to be a millionaire soon. He’s got Economic Stockholm… Read more »
David, to return to your question, my understanding is that yes, the state have in fact recognised more conditions that entitle people to receive financial assistance on account of their disability. And this is being recorded in the CSO, etc. since 2006. In many cases, it’s a shift in statistics as many people now recorded as out of the workforce due to disability were previously just recorded as unemployed with no reference to ability/disability. Regarding what happens to people who officially are in receipt of disability payment, you are correct that there is a lack of documented information. They certainly… Read more »
The biggest disability payments are being made out to banksters, politicians, corporations & jurnalist/media liars all of whos brains are so diseased and disabled beyond the point where they can not or can no longer understanding that it is more enjoyable to share and help your neighbour, community & country then it is to rob your neighbour, community and country.
Unfortunately the 4 named rats above still retain the ability to control the rest of soiety and collect their golden diability payments despite their brain disease.
Effective rate of taxation across different regions? I have looked online, without success, for a study that may have been done which compares the effective tax rate across different regions of the globe. Basically, if you earn X amount, where will you have the most disposable income, ignoring places like Iraq or Saudi Arabia. Does such data exist? Even within the USA, different states would have a different effective tax rate.
Social welfare spending in Ireland last year 20.8 billion.
Health spending around the 13.6 billion in 2012
The level of waste amongst these budgets are massive.
For example, right now a man can father as many children as he wishes with as many different women as he wants and the state will pick up the tab in terms of housing, schooling clothing medical care etc.
How many deserving cases are going short because money is being wasted by the state on this?
This policy is creating a poverty trap that will come back to haunt future generations.
Middle classes/genius
1)Claiming disability and dancing the night away at a wedding.
2)living in spain@courtesy of Irish social welfare claiming disability
3)David does not take this issue furthur couple the disability with all other income going into that house. Who are the wealthy in ireland?They call other elements of society “White thrash”ie middle classes claiming the disability yet shamelessly rub it into their neighbours face and the state enables them.The system is rotten and corrupt meanwhile the new working poor must pay for it all.”Get me outta here”
I am just speculating here, as I am not familiar with the Irish welfare system, but did people not mention here some time back that self-employed people did not qualify for unemployment benefits when they applied, so maybe they have found access to supports by registering as having a disability…….just guessing here so don’t bite my head off….
Phill hogan is not hiding in the long grass anymore and like a good snake has come out to play and cause more trouble over the water tax, now that the by election is over.
I wonder if he was let out from the long grass sooner would FG have lost the Meath seat?
The explosion of sickness is it related to geo-enigineering. Terenure-Rathfarnham-Tempelogue area and Killiney-Dalkey area (where my family is from) the trees, bushes and flowers are all dying – again is this related to geo-engineering. Al Gore in an interview 4 weeks ago revealed he is against the geo-engineering business of ariel spraying otherwise known as chemtrails. He cited the damage it is causing to be worse than the problem it is apparently trying to fix. Does he know more than we are been told. For anyone interested the materials used in geo-engineering are heavy metals and you breath that stuff… Read more »
Interesting that David makes no mention whatsoever of the obvious correlation between the dramatic rise in disability and the financial disaster we are living through.
It is as clear as day to me; these figures reflect something of the collateral social damage of the financial disaster we are living through.
From all the countries in the world, Ireland is probably one of the best environments to live in with no natural disasters. We hardly have any industrial air pollution and we get the wind from the west that blows everything away from us. Continental Europe is full of industrial waste. I’ve been spending some time in Asia and air pollution over there is so bad that you need to put on a facemask just to go out shopping. We spend our money on heating up our houses but in these hot countries they spend it on their airco systems that… Read more »
David, your above article is dangerous and the subtlety of it makes more so… I think you should clear up its intent in the next issue or do you favour bailouts for the rich and not those that need help. The unemployment rate during the boom years proved that people want to work. Placing the blame on people who are down is shameful they are an effect not a cause. Fix the rotten money system which is the cause and always has been. Don’t do like the English tabloids do – as the mail does. Kicking someone when they are… Read more »
This kite flying exercise has gone horribly wrong
Judging by the 100+ comments is seems that there is still a lot of humanity left in Ireland
The People 1 – Nasty Party 0
Haw haw haw
Thanks to Georg R. Baumann for the trigger: “THE suicide rate per 100,000 people is seven times greater in Ireland than in England, shock figures have revealed.” http://www.thestar.ie/star/irish-suicide-rate-far-worse-than-englands-shocking-new-figures-highlight-lack-of-government-investment/ So, there’s no ‘mystery’ whatsover, it’s the effects of austerity and the pack mentality of FF/FG. Those who can’t, won’t emigrate and whose faces don’t fit at the cumann: quite literally, just fcuk off and die. Cascade this shame down from overt suicide to dysfunctional health and other services, a rapacious, devious and criminal banking class 69’ing with all main political parties- and you have a recipe for mass revolt or depressive… Read more »
If you are a single male on the dole you have to collect your money with your ID every week in the local post office and you have to sign on once a month in your local dole office. This is all part of making sure that you are not working, are in the country and are available to work. If you miss collecting your money or forget to sign once a month you get booted off and have to reapply and give a valid reason to why you missed any of the afore mentioned requirements. But remember you only… Read more »