Same survey, same year, opposite answers
In 2025, 9.7% of people with a disability in Lithuania were in the labour force, against 27.7% in Sweden: the 2nd and the 70th of the 104 economies that report both groups. Both figures come from EU-SILC, the same survey run to the same specification in both countries, in the same year.
And the obvious explanation does not survive the second row of the table. Among people WITHOUT a disability, Lithuania is the more active of the two, 66.3% against 57.1%. So Lithuania is not a country where fewer people work. The difference is confined to one group: the gap is 56.6 points in Lithuania and 29.4 in Sweden.
The spread is wide, and it is not an artefact of who asks the question. Within EU-SILC alone, 29 economies running one questionnaire, the gap runs from 29.1 points in Switzerland to Lithuania’s 56.6. Across all 104 the median is 35.2 points; 34 economies are above 40 and 17 below 20.
| Economy | Year | With a disability | Without | Gap, points | Rank of 104 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lithuania | 2025 | 9.7% | 66.3% | 56.6 | 2 |
| Greece | 2025 | 8.3% | 58.9% | 50.6 | 7 |
| Hungary | 2025 | 14.4% | 64.4% | 50.1 | 8 |
| Romania | 2025 | 1.9% | 51.7% | 49.8 | 9 |
| Indonesia | 2023 | 18.5% | 68.3% | 49.8 | 10 |
| Portugal | 2025 | 13.0% | 62.7% | 49.6 | 11 |
| Spain | 2025 | 18.6% | 61.9% | 43.3 | 24 |
| United States | 2025 | 24.8% | 68.0% | 43.2 | 25 |
| Thailand | 2019 | 31.4% | 71.2% | 39.8 | 35 |
| Türkiye | 2024 | 15.8% | 53.6% | 37.8 | 41 |
| Germany | 2022 | 19.5% | 57.3% | 37.8 | 42 |
| Poland | 2025 | 10.3% | 45.9% | 35.6 | 51 |
| France | 2025 | 26.1% | 60.0% | 33.9 | 57 |
| United Kingdom | 2025 | 39.2% | 72.3% | 33.1 | 59 |
| Sweden | 2025 | 27.7% | 57.1% | 29.4 | 70 |
| Egypt | 2024 | 19.2% | 48.2% | 29.0 | 72 |
| Kenya | 2019 | 75.7% | 66.5% | -9.2 | 104 |
The gap widens as countries get richer
The direction surprises most readers. Across the 104 economies the gap correlates at 0.55 with income per person, with medians of 26.1, 34.2 and 42.5 points from the poorest third to the richest. The widest gaps in the table are in Europe; the narrowest are not.
The whole of that relationship sits on one side of it. Income predicts participation among people with a disability at minus 0.49, and among people without one at minus 0.00, which is to say not at all. Median participation among people with a disability falls from 33.2% in the poorest third to 18.2% in the richest, while among people without one it barely moves, 65.1% to 60.2%.
The bottom of the table is where this is plainest. Kenya reports 75.7% participation among people with a disability against 66.5% among people without one, a gap of minus 9.2 points, and Burkina Faso and Nauru are the two others with no gap at all. All three are among the poorest economies here, and section three says what that does and does not mean.
What a narrow gap can mean
Being outside the labour market is a choice only where it is affordable. Where there is little or no disability income, people with a disability cannot stop looking, and the measure counts them as participating. A narrow gap is consistent with a country that includes disabled workers, and equally with one that offers them nothing to fall back on.
Nor does this measure see hiring. It counts people who are working and people who are looking for work, together, so it cannot separate an employer who would not hire from a labour market someone never entered. Those have different causes and different remedies, and this figure does not distinguish them.
Sex splits the disabled group much as it splits everyone else. Among people with a disability, men’s participation is above women’s in 94 of the 102 economies that publish both, with a median gap of 7.8 points. In the table, Egypt is the widest: 28.5% for men against 8.1% for women.
- This is the labour force, not employment. It counts people who are working AND people who are looking for work. A low figure does not say that people applied and were turned down: it says they are outside the labour market altogether, which is a different thing and has different causes.
- The gap is a difference within ONE survey. How a country decides who counts as disabled differs enormously, so the level cannot be ranked across countries with confidence. Both groups here come from the same questionnaire, the same country and the same year, which is why the gap is the figure this piece leads with.
- A narrow gap is not inclusion. Where there is little or no disability income, being outside the labour market is not an option, so participation among people with a disability can be high for reasons no one would want. The three economies with no gap at all are among the poorest in the set.
So Lithuania’s 9.7% does not say that disabled Lithuanians are refused work, and Sweden’s 27.7% does not say Sweden hires them: they say that of every hundred people with a disability counted in Lithuania in 2025, 9.7 were working or looking, and in Sweden 27.7 were.
One rate, two groups, one questionnaire; and a reading that forgets which is which claims what the source does not.
What the gap does not say
It does not say one country treats disabled people better than another. A narrow gap can mean inclusion or it can mean no alternative; nothing here separates the two, and no ranking of countries follows from it.
It does not measure hiring, or discrimination in hiring. The labour force counts people looking for work as participating, so someone refused a hundred jobs and someone employed for thirty years are counted the same way.
And it names no cause. Disability benefits, quotas, transport, workplace adjustment and the age structure of each group all sit behind these numbers, and none is measured here. Each economy appears once, in its own latest year: nothing here says a gap widened or narrowed.
What the data establishes
- In 2025, 9.7% of people with a disability in Lithuania were in the labour force against 27.7% in Sweden, from the same survey in the same year, ranking 2nd and 70th of 104 economies; among people without a disability the order reverses, 66.3% against 57.1%.
- Across the 104, the median gap is 35.2 points; within EU-SILC alone, 29 economies on one questionnaire, it runs from 29.1 points to 56.6.
- The gap correlates at 0.55 with income per person, with medians of 26.1, 34.2 and 42.5 points from the poorest third to the richest; income predicts disabled participation at minus 0.49 and non-disabled participation at minus 0.00.
- Among people with a disability, men’s participation is above women’s in 94 of the 102 economies that publish both, with a median gap of 7.8 points.
What it does not
- That a narrow gap means a better country. Where there is no disability income, staying outside the labour market is not an option, and three of the narrowest gaps here are in the poorest economies.
- Anything about hiring or discrimination. The labour force counts people looking for work as participating, so this cannot separate an employer who refuses from a market someone never entered.
- Anything about benefits, quotas, transport or workplace adjustment. None of them is measured here, and no cause is named.
- Any trend. One year per economy, and the years and instruments differ between them: nothing here says a gap widened or narrowed.
- Anything about the economies that publish no disability breakdown at all, including Japan, China, South Korea, India, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Method
- One measure, one survey per economy. ILOSTAT dataflow DF_EAP_DWAP_SEX_DSB_RT, the labour force participation rate by sex and disability status, ages 15 and over, read through the ILO’s SDMX API on 23 September 2026 (the date is the timestamp of the downloaded files, 20:28 and 20:33). For each economy the latest year from 2019 to 2025 that carries BOTH the disability and the no-disability figure from the SAME reported source is used, and the gap is the second minus the first. Where a year offers the two from different surveys, it is not used.
- AGGREGATES ARE NOT COUNTRIES. Regions and income groups were removed by keeping only codes on the World Bank’s country list, which leaves 104: 45 whose latest year is 2025, 16 with 2024, 9 with 2023, 17 with 2022, 8 with 2021, 3 with 2020 and 6 with 2019. Six of the desk’s sixteen languages have no economy in the set at all, because their countries publish no disability breakdown: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hindi, Vietnamese and Filipino.
- THE INSTRUMENTS DIFFER, AND THAT IS WHY THE PIECE LEADS WITH A DIFFERENCE. 48 of the 104 figures come from a household income and expenditure survey, of which 29 are EU-SILC, 43 from a labour force survey, 7 from a population census and 6 from another household survey. How each identifies disability is a national choice; both groups within one economy answer the same questionnaire, so the gap survives that variation in a way the level does not.
- The median of 104 values is the mean of the 52nd and 53rd, 35.2205 points, shown as 35.2; no single economy sits on it, and none is named as the median. 34 economies are above 40 points, 66 above 30, 17 below 20 and 3 at or below zero: Burkina Faso, Kenya and Nauru. The widest is Seychelles at 63.4, the narrowest Kenya at minus 9.2.
- The correlations are Pearson coefficients over the 104, against the natural log of GDP per person at purchasing power parity (World Bank NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD, latest year). The income thirds hold 34, 35 and 35 economies: the poorest below 8,610 dollars a head, the richest above 43,902. Each third’s figure is the median of its members. Lithuania’s income per person is 56,838 dollars and Sweden’s 72,529.
- Rounding is done once, at display, from figures the source serves to three decimals: Lithuania 9.671% and 66.314%, Sweden 27.731% and 57.116%, Romania 1.924%, the United Kingdom 39.215%, Kenya 75.678%. Sweden’s disabled participation is 2.87 times Lithuania’s, which the headline gives as one in ten against nearly three in ten.
Primary sources
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