For school leaders working to support students with disability, ambition has never been in short supply. Individual learning plans, inclusion strategies and funding loadings are common. But closing the outcomes gap has proven far harder than the rhetoric suggests.
New research led by Flinders University suggests that difficulty extends well beyond the school gate, and across more than two decades. Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA), researchers examined the extent of social inequity experienced by young people aged 15 to 29 with disability, compared with those without, between 2001 and 2023.
The findings, published in the Australian Journal of Social Issues, show that despite significant funding and major reforms over the period, the inequity gap between the two groups has not meaningfully narrowed across any of the 29 indicators tracked since 2001.
“Our findings indicate that things haven’t improved to any major degree – despite ongoing policy initiatives over recent decades aimed at reducing inequity for people with disability,” Flinders research associate Dr Asha Parkinson, said.
“We found that despite increased funding and major reforms over the last two decades, as of 2023, the inequity gap between young people with and without disability has not meaningfully narrowed for any of the 29 indicators since 2001."
Dr Parkinson pointed out that some outcomes for young people with disability have improved in isolation, such as year 12 completion rates, but cautioned that more needs to be done.
"As these increases have been matched by comparable or even greater improvement for young people without disability, the inequity gap remains.”
The study also found that the percentage of young people with disability in the HILDA sample who reported receiving NDIS support peaked at just 11% in 2023, suggesting many young people with disability may not be benefitting from the scheme's current structure. That figure sits against Australian Bureau of Statistics 2024 data estimating that approximately 9% of Australians aged 15 to 29 are living with disability.
The research is among the first to track the inequity gap between young people with and without disability across the full 23 years of the HILDA study, drawing on nationally representative data spanning mental and physical health, employment, education and community engagement. The 29 indicators used align with seven articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which in turn correspond to priority areas identified in Australia's Disability Strategy.
It's a policy landscape that has evolved substantially since the country ratified the UN convention in 2008, a step that led to the first National Disability Strategy 2010–2020, the rollout of individualised support through the NDIS from 2013, and, more recently, the four-year Disability Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, which delivered its final report in 2023.
Co-author Matthew Flinders Professor Sally Robinson says the study set out to assess Australia's progress in promoting the rights of young people with disability over this period.
“Our findings raise questions about how Australia measures its own progress towards achieving disability rights,” Professor Robinson, Professor in Disability and Community Inclusion at Flinders University, said. “Most government reporting tracks whether people with disability are better off now than in the past, rather than whether they are catching up to their peers."
Professor Robinson said this means current reporting may suggest progress even while the underlying inequity gap stays the same.
“As a result, changes in these outcomes over time provide an indication of the Australia's Disability Strategy's effectiveness in reducing inequity.”