Contents
- Inclusive education participation statistics: school attendance and employment among Canadian youth with disabilities
- Inclusive education participation statistics: age differences in school and work participation
- Inclusive education participation statistics: regional, racialized and immigration differences
- Inclusive education participation statistics: disability severity and school engagement
- Inclusive education participation statistics: British Columbia completion paths
- Inclusive education participation statistics: disability categories and high-school outcomes
- Sources
Inclusive education participation statistics: school attendance and employment among Canadian youth with disabilities
The term “inclusive education participation” can mean different things: being enrolled, attending classes, taking part in school life, or completing a credential. The available Canadian measures here address accredited-program attendance and combinations of education and employment. They do not measure classroom placement or participation in classroom activities. This distinction matters when interpreting the figures: attendance provides a useful population-level indicator, but it does not describe the quality or accessibility of an individual student’s experience.
In the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability report, 65.1% of Canadian youth aged 15 to 24 with disabilities attended school, compared with 69.7% of youth without disabilities. The attendance question refers to any full-time or part-time attendance at an accredited institution or program from September 2020 to May 11, 2021. Although the estimates appear in a report published for 2022, that specific attendance reference period is in 2020 and 2021; these should not be read as attendance rates for calendar year 2022. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
The report also groups young people by whether they attended school and whether they were employed, unemployed, or outside the labour force. Among youth with disabilities aged 15 to 24, 42.2% attended school while unemployed or not in the labour force, and 22.8% attended school while employed. A further 19.0% did not attend school and were employed, while 16.0% were not in education, employment or training (NEET). These are distinct categories in the report’s classification; the NEET measure is not interchangeable with simply being out of school.
For comparison, among youth without disabilities aged 15 to 24, 40.2% attended school while unemployed or not in the labour force, 29.4% attended school while employed, and 21.1% did not attend school while employed. The NEET estimate for this group was 9.2%. These figures describe population-level combinations of school attendance and labour-market status. They do not establish why the groups differ, nor do they indicate whether an individual was seeking work or attending school by choice. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
| Education and employment category, ages 15–24 | With disabilities | Without disabilities |
|---|---|---|
| Attended school; unemployed or not in labour force | 42.2% | 40.2% |
| Attended school; employed | 22.8% | 29.4% |
| Did not attend school; employed | 19.0% | 21.1% |
| Not in education, employment or training (NEET) | 16.0% | 9.2% |
Percent of Canadian youth aged 15 to 24 in each reported category, 2022. Source: Statistics Canada.
Inclusive education participation statistics: age differences in school and work participation
Age separates two different stages of youth education and employment. For the combination of attending school while unemployed or not in the labour force, 63.0% of youth with disabilities aged 15 to 19 were in that category, compared with 23.5% of those aged 20 to 24. Among youth without disabilities, the corresponding estimates were 58.2% and 23.7%. The pattern is visible in both disability groups, but the measure combines school attendance with a labour-force status; it is not an estimate of total school enrolment by age. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
| Age group | With disabilities: attended school, unemployed or not in labour force | Without disabilities: same category |
|---|---|---|
| 15–19 | 63.0% | 58.2% |
| 20–24 | 23.5% | 23.7% |
Canadian youth, 2022. Source: Statistics Canada.
Employment alongside school attendance shows a different age pattern. Among youth with disabilities, 23.2% of those aged 15 to 19 attended school while employed, as did 22.5% of those aged 20 to 24. Among youth without disabilities, the corresponding shares were 29.1% and 29.7%. The estimates describe the proportion in this particular combined status, not the share of all students who held jobs. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
A separate category captures youth who did not attend school while employed. For youth with disabilities aged 15 to 19, the estimate was 5.9%. This is one part of the broader school-and-work picture and should be kept distinct from the “attended school while employed” figures above. Together, the age-specific indicators show why a single participation rate cannot represent every education and work pathway. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
Inclusive education participation statistics: regional, racialized and immigration differences
Among Canadian youth with disabilities aged 15 to 24, the share attending school while unemployed or not in the labour force varied across the reported regions. Ontario was at 48.7%, while the Atlantic provinces were at 39.9%, British Columbia at 40.5%, the Prairie provinces at 36.4%, and Quebec at 36.5%. These estimates refer to the same combined school and labour-force category. They do not provide a regional measure of attendance alone, nor do they explain the differences. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
| Region | Attended school; unemployed or not in labour force |
|---|---|
| Ontario | 48.7% |
| Atlantic provinces | 39.9% |
| British Columbia | 40.5% |
| Quebec | 36.5% |
| Prairie provinces | 36.4% |
Canadian youth aged 15 to 24 with disabilities, 2022. Source: Statistics Canada.
The source also reports comparisons by racialized group and immigrant status. Among racialized youth with disabilities, 56.6% attended school while unemployed or not in the labour force; the report defines this category using its visible-minority variable. The comparison category is labelled “non-racialized, non-Indigenous” in the table, with an estimate of 37.9%. These labels reflect the source’s classification and should not be expanded into broader claims about identity or experience. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
For immigrant youth with disabilities, the estimate was 56.1%, and Statistics Canada marked it “use with caution.” The non-immigrant estimate was 40.7%. The caution flag is relevant when describing the immigrant estimate: it signals that readers should interpret that value carefully. Neither comparison establishes a cause or indicates how immigration or racialization relates to school access for any particular young person. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
Inclusive education participation statistics: disability severity and school engagement
The report’s severity categories show school and work combinations for youth with disabilities aged 15 to 24. Among youth with milder disabilities, 25.7% attended school while employed; among those with more severe disabilities, the figure was 16.8%. The table also distinguishes youth by number of disability types: 26.5% of those with one disability type attended school while employed, compared with 20.7% of those with two or more co-occurring disability types. These are separate classifications, and the source does not support combining them into a single measure of severity. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
Age-specific estimates for attending school while unemployed or not in the labour force add context. Among youth with milder disabilities, the estimate was 61.4% for ages 15 to 19 and 24.5% for ages 20 to 24. Among youth with more severe disabilities, the respective estimates were 66.8% and 21.3%. The younger group’s percentage is higher in both severity categories, while the measure still combines attendance and labour-force status rather than recording school engagement directly. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
| Disability severity and age | Attended school; unemployed or not in labour force |
|---|---|
| Milder disabilities, ages 15–19 | 61.4% |
| More severe disabilities, ages 15–19 | 66.8% |
| Milder disabilities, ages 20–24 | 24.5% |
| More severe disabilities, ages 20–24 | 21.3% |
Canadian youth with disabilities, 2022. Source: Statistics Canada.
One regional figure in the employment-while-attending-school category offers another view of how the measures differ: among youth with disabilities in Quebec, 32.9% attended school while employed. This statistic has a different category and denominator framing from the regional values in the previous section, which focused on attending school while unemployed or not in the labour force. It should therefore be read on its own. Source: Statistics Canada, Education and employment experiences of youth with disabilities, 2022
Inclusive education participation statistics: British Columbia completion paths
A separate Statistics Canada study follows a British Columbia Grade 12 cohort aged 15 to 19 in 2015/2016 and classifies outcomes as graduation, receipt of an Evergreen Certificate, or neither outcome. In the total cohort, 84.1% graduated high school, 1.6% received an Evergreen Certificate, and 14.2% neither graduated nor received that certificate. The Evergreen Certificate is a school completion certificate, not a graduation credential, so the two outcomes should not be treated as equivalent credentials. Source: Statistics Canada, Through a diverse needs lens: High school students working toward a Dogwood Diploma or an Evergreen Certificate in British Columbia
| British Columbia Grade 12 cohort outcome | Total, 2015/2016 |
|---|---|
| Graduated high school | 84.1% |
| Received an Evergreen Certificate | 1.6% |
| Neither graduated nor received an Evergreen Certificate | 14.2% |
Grade 12 students aged 15 to 19; table percentages may not total 100 because of rounding. The source excludes 522 Adult Dogwood graduates and 601 students with gifted status. Source: Statistics Canada.
For students classified as having disabilities and diverse abilities, 58.5% graduated high school, 12.3% received an Evergreen Certificate, and 29.3% neither graduated nor received one. In the reference category of students without disabilities and diverse abilities, 87.5% graduated, 0.2% received an Evergreen Certificate, and 12.4% had neither outcome. The categories describe completion paths for this historical cohort; they are not current-year results. Source: Statistics Canada, Through a diverse needs lens: High school students working toward a Dogwood Diploma or an Evergreen Certificate in British Columbia
Inclusive education participation statistics: disability categories and high-school outcomes
The British Columbia cohort’s disability-category results show that completion paths differed across categories. Among students with autism spectrum disorder in 2015/2016, 44.3% graduated high school, 19.1% received an Evergreen Certificate, and 36.7% neither graduated nor received one. For students with behavioural disabilities or mental illness, 55.5% graduated, 2.2% received an Evergreen Certificate, and 42.2% had neither outcome. These are the outcomes reported for each category, not measures of school attendance or classroom participation. Source: Statistics Canada, Through a diverse needs lens: High school students working toward a Dogwood Diploma or an Evergreen Certificate in British Columbia
For students with intellectual disabilities, 6.3% graduated high school, 51.0% received an Evergreen Certificate, and 42.7% neither graduated nor received one. Read alongside the autism spectrum disorder and behavioural disabilities or mental illness categories, these values show how the reported path differed by disability category in this Grade 12 cohort. The certificate remains a distinct school completion outcome, and these 2015/2016 percentages do not describe current cohorts. Source: Statistics Canada, Through a diverse needs lens: High school students working toward a Dogwood Diploma or an Evergreen Certificate in British Columbia
The completion table excludes Adult Dogwood graduates and students with gifted status, and totals may not equal 100% because of rounding. Its findings should be interpreted within those boundaries: it describes specified outcomes for one historical Grade 12 cohort in British Columbia. The national youth indicators, meanwhile, measure accredited-program attendance and education-employment status. Together, the sources provide complementary measures of participation and completion, while leaving classroom inclusion and individual student experience outside the scope of the reported statistics. Source: Statistics Canada, Through a diverse needs lens: High school students working toward a Dogwood Diploma or an Evergreen Certificate in British Columbia