How has the employment gap of those growing up with special educational needs or disability in England changed over two cohorts born 30 years apart?

Across the world, disabled working-age adults face substantial labour market disadvantage, though with variation by age. For example, in the UK, the disability employment gap remains greater among those who are older. To investigate whether this means that more recent cohorts face less disadvantage or instead captures a greater impact of disability at older ages, we compare two British cohorts born in 1958 and 1989/90 identified with special educational needs or disability (SEND) in childhood. SEND functions as a classification bounded by the institutional context, which recognises particular conditions and forms of impairment as salient within the school context for a given time and system. By using a measure of disability prior to labour market entry we can compare employment gaps in youth across the two cohorts independently of subsequent labour market impacts on disability onset. We find that by age 25, those from both birth cohorts, particularly women, face substantial economic disadvantage. The gaps are, however, smaller for the younger cohort. While they increase in mid-life for the older cohort they show some convergence by age 50. Qualifications and social background explain less of the gap for the older cohort and for women from the younger one.