Deaf people’s average pay last year was ‪0.6% more than non-disabled peers, ONS data reveals

The median pay for people with a “difficulty in hearing” in 2021 was 0.6% higher than non-disabled employees, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has shown.

The figures, shared on Monday, formed part of a release revealing the wider disability employment gap had increased from 13.5% in 2020 to 13.8% last year.

In its summary of the statistical release, the ONS wrote: “The disability pay gap, the gap between median pay for disabled employees and non-disabled employees, was 13.8% in 2021 and 14.1% in 2019 prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“This gap has widened slightly since 2014 when disabled employees earnt 11.7% less than non-disabled employees.”

The 0.6% difference emerged after the ONS adjusted the data to factor in “potentially pay-determining characteristics” like occupation, age and an employee’s qualifications.

“Difficulty in hearing” was the only category which saw its average pay gap for 2021 – which found this group of people being paid more than non-disabled people – stay in that increase in both the ONS’ raw and adjusted data.

This is in comparison to other disabilities such as autism, with the adjusted median pay of autistic people being 9.9% lower than non-disabled employees without a long-term health condition.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.

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Update – 05/05/21: In a statement commenting on the statistics, the Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID) told The Limping Chicken they were “surprised” by the figures, as their research has “consistently shown that people who are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus face barriers in the workplace”. 

Claire Lavery, Associate Director for Employment, said: “It is important to recognise that ‘difficulty in hearing’ is a broad category into which people are asked to self-identify which will include different levels of hearing loss, from mild hearing loss (in medical terms) to people who are profoundly deaf.  

“Our research shows that the experiences of BSL users within the workplace differ considerably to those with different levels of hearing loss. It is important that the government includes a category for BSL users in the ONS figures and in other datasets to better analyse the experiences of the Deaf community in the workplace.”

Ms Lavery went on to add they would continue to raise the issue with the Cabinet Office as part of their work on reporting disability data through the National Disability Strategy.

She continued: “The government’s 2021 Employment of Disabled People publication (which sources its data from the Labour Force Survey, Annual Population Survey and Family Resources Survey), shows a big difference in those who reported ‘difficulty in hearing’ as their main condition (120,847) and those who reported it as their main OR secondary condition (619,367).

“This indicates that there is a high prevalence of coexisting disabilities and conditions among deaf people and people with hearing loss. This may impact on the ONS figures which only record ‘main impairment type’.”

Note: We have also updated this piece to clarify the phrase used by the ONS was individuals with a “difficulty in hearing”.