A World Bank report has found levels of unemployment increasing among disabled persons in the country.

The study commissioned by the Government of India and based on a sample of 2,000 households in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh says that employment rate among people with disability (PWD) fell from 42.7 per cent in 1991 down to 37.6 per cent in 2002.

The five percentage point difference results in part from the different sample as people with mental illness and retardation were not counted as PWD in the 47th round but were in the 58th round, where they were the PWD sub groups with the lowest employment rates.

However, the finding of a reduced employment rate among PWD between the early 1990s and the early 2000s holds even when mental illness and mental retardation people are omitted from the 58th round sample.

Excluding MI and MR, the study says that the employment rate of PWD still stands at 39.6 in 2002 i.e. 3.1 percentage points lower than in 1991. This compares to a fall of only 1.1 percentage points for the general population (from 58.6 to 57.5 per cent) between 1993 and 2000, the report points out.

The report finds no explanation for this decline in employment rates over a decade among people with disability. Says lead author Philip O'Keefe: "We are still looking for answers for this one. I feel better reporting and better awareness about the matter could explain the figures partly."

The report, People with Disabilities in India: From Commitments to Outcomes, concludes that further research is needed to understand the determinants of the decline in the job rate of persons with physical and sensory disabilities between 1991 and 2002, particularly to assess if it results from changes in the demographic composition of the population with disabilities, in the increased severity of disability or factors in the labour market and society.

The report goes on to say that fall in the employment rates of PWD relative to the general working age population during the 1990s is almost universal across the country except Sikkim. But the extent of the relative decline varies.

States like Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra exhibit small falls in the PWD/non PWD employment ratios, while others like J& K, Bihar, and Assam have seen large falls in the relative employment position of PWD.

A further aspect of the unfair gap between the employment rates of the PWD and the general working age population is the variations between the two in the levels of education.

The study says that the gap in employment rates between the two is more pronounced for those with the lowest levels of education in both periods. The gap in employment levels has widened for all education levels, the study shows.

For the illiterate PWD population, their employment rate was 64 per cent of the of the general illiterate population in the early 1990s. This fell sharply to 47 per cent by the early 2000s. Not only have PWDs lost out in employment terms in 1990s, but those likely to be the poorest have lost out proportionately more, the report says.