This chapter outlines the significant social and labour market disadvantages faced by people with disability in Croatia, drawing on data from the Survey of Income and Living Conditions. It highlights persistently high poverty rates, exceptionally low employment levels, and widening education gaps, all of which contribute to one of the largest disability employment gaps in Europe. Despite similar disability prevalence to other countries, Croatia stands out for the scale of its employment disadvantage, suggesting entrenched stigma and structural barriers. The chapter also takes account of recent reforms in the disability policy sphere marking important progress. However, the chapter stresses that improving disability and work capacity assessment alone is insufficient; broader, system‑wide changes are needed to enhance inclusion, prevent poverty, and support equal participation in society.
Disability, Work and Inclusion in Croatia
Abstract
People with disability in Croatia face significant and widening disadvantages in education, employment, and income. Despite recent policy commitments and reforms, Croatia continues to record some of the largest disability gaps in Europe. Improving assessment systems, strengthening early intervention, and fostering inclusive education and labour market environments will be crucial to reversing current trends.
Poverty among people with disability in Croatia is among the highest in Europe. Around one‑third of people with disability live in low-income households – a percentage well above the OECD European average – while poverty among people without disability is close to the European norm. The disability poverty gap has widened steadily since 2016.
Exceptionally low employment rates are the main driver of high poverty. Only about 23% of people with disability are employed in Croatia, one of the lowest rates in the European OECD countries. Employment rates have stagnated or fallen in the years since 2016, in contrast to continuous improvements among people without disability.
Educational attainment among people with disability remains very low and has not improved over time. Only one in ten people with disability completes upper secondary education or higher – half the average share across comparable European countries. Unlike most European countries, educational outcomes for this group have not improved since 2015, widening the disability education gap.
Disability employment gaps are among the largest in Europe – even after adjusting for prevalence. Croatia’s disability employment gap exceeds 40 percentage points (p.p.). When accounting for the relatively high disability prevalence, Croatia still ranks as the country with the greatest share of working age people not working due to disability.
Higher formal registration of disability suggests strong incentives to seek disability status – yet labour market inclusion remains low. Croatia is unusual in that survey-based disability prevalence aligns closely with national disability register data, reflecting widespread formal registration to access benefits and services. However, this does not translate into better inclusion or employment outcomes.
Significant policy changes have been introduced, but further reform is needed. Recent years have seen strengthened professional rehabilitation, expanded employer incentives, the introduction of a disability employment quota, the establishment of a single assessment body and increased financial supports. Nonetheless, disability assessment remains fragmented and medical, and thus insufficiently aligned with the principles of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
A more comprehensive and preventative approach is essential. Large and persistent gaps reflect structural barriers, stigma, and insufficient early intervention. Improving disability assessment is only one part of a necessary broader reform agenda that must emphasise prevention, early identification, inclusive education, employer engagement, and better co‑ordination across institutions.
The Croatian Government aims to improve the determination of the remaining work capacity of people with disability, and to harmonise the assessment process across different institutions, with the ultimate objective to improve the social and labour market inclusion of this group of the population. Comparative analysis based on data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) indeed suggests that Croatia is lagging behind in a variety of aspects and that there is a long way to go for Croatia to overcome disability discrimination and achieve better disability inclusion.
Poverty indicators are a good measure of overall inclusion of a disadvantaged segment of the population. Figure 1.1 defines the relative poverty rate as the share of a population living with equivalised per-capita household income below 60% of the population mean – the poverty measure commonly used in most OECD analyses. According to this definition, around one in three people with disability in Croatia live in a poor or low-income household, the second-highest share in the European Union (after Lithuania) and significantly above the OECD European average of 22%. On the contrary, the poverty rate for people without disability in Croatia is very similar to the European average of 13.5% for this group (Figure 1.1, Panel A), implying a disability poverty gap that is much larger than in most European countries. Added to this, the poverty gap has deteriorated in Croatia since 2016, with a continuous increase in the share of people with disability living in a low-income household, from 25% to 33%, at the same time as the share has fallen slightly for people without disability (Figure 1.1, Panel B).
Share of people with and without disability with incomes below the poverty threshold across countries and over time
Note: The lines in Panel A represent the unweighted average of the 26 European OECD Member and accession countries shown. The poverty threshold corresponds to 60% of the mean household-size‑adjusted per capita household income.
Source: OECD calculations based on the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), 2015‑2023.
What are the reasons behind the high and increasing level of poverty for people with disability in Croatia? It is well known from comparative disability studies that higher employment is the only effective response to combatting poverty of all population groups, including people with disability (OECD, 2010[1]; OECD, 2022[2]). Figure 1.2 shows the key explanatory factor of the high poverty level: the employment rate of people with disability in Croatia is extremely low, at 23.4% in 2023. This is the third-lowest rate in the European Union (after Bulgaria and Romania), well below the OECD European average of 40.9% and much below rates of over 50% in some of the vanguard countries (Figure 1.2, Panel A). The employment rate of people with disability in Croatia is also just half the level in neighbouring Slovenia, despite the common past of these two countries. Trends in employment rates over time also explain large parts of the trend in the poverty rates. While employment rates of people without disability in Croatia have increased continuously since 2016, from about 55% to about 65%, the employment rate of people with disability remained unchanged and very low, at around 25% until 2021, and even fell between 2021 and 2023 (Figure 1.2, Panel B).
Share of people with and without disability who are employed across countries and over time
Note: The lines in Panel A represent the unweighted average of the 26 European OECD Member and accession countries shown.
Source: OECD calculations based on the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), 2015‑2023.
Additional data for people receiving a disability benefit show that in Croatia employment rates are also particularly low for this group. Only about 1 in 20 people who receive a disability benefit claim to also have some employment (Figure 1.3). This compares to an average across all countries of nearly 25% and even closer to 50% in a few countries. The 5% share in Croatia is also very low in relation to the share of people receiving a disability benefit, the so-called disability benefit receipt rate. According to data from EU-SILC, about 5.7% of the Croatian working-age population receive a disability benefit – a share that is close to the OECD European average. Figure 1.3 also shows that there is a strong correlation across countries between the share receiving a disability benefit and the share among them who are employed: the higher the disability benefit recipiency rate, the higher the likelihood that some of these benefit recipients are also employed, with a correlation coefficient of 0.68. In other words, employment rates of benefit recipients in Croatia are very low relative to the recipiency rate, further showing the disadvantages of this group of the population on the labour market.
Share of the population receiving a disability benefit compared to the share of employed benefit recipients, 2023
Note: Data cover 26 European OECD Member and accession countries.
Source: OECD calculations based on the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), 2023.
Stubbornly low employment rates for people with disability in Croatia may be related to disappointing trends in the level of education which people achieve and, thus, with poor inclusion of the population with disability in mainstream schooling. Figure 1.4 shows the development from 2015 to 2023 in the distribution of the population by the highest level of education they accomplish, comparing people with and without disability and comparing Croatia with the average of 25 European countries. Two striking aspects are visible. First, only one in ten people with disability in Croatia complete upper secondary education or more; this is only half the share realised on average across the 25 countries. Second, this share has not changed in Croatia since 2015 while it has changed for people with disability in other countries and for people without disability everywhere, including in Croatia. While the disability education gap is therefore closing in many countries or at least remaining stable as education levels also continue to improve for people without disability, in Croatia the gap is still increasing over time, starting from a high level already. It is worth noting that the share of people with primary education only is not higher in Croatia than it is in other countries; Croatians with disability are just much less likely to transition from lower secondary to upper secondary education.
Share of the working-age population by highest attained level of education and disability status, 2015-2023
Note: PWD: people with disability; PWoD: people without disability. EU25 refers to the EU27 member countries, excluding Cyprus and Malta.
Source: OECD calculations based on the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), 2015‑2023.
The low level of education and subsequently the low level of employment realised by people with disability in Croatia has a massive impact on the disability employment gap, i.e. the difference in employment rates between people with and without disability. Figure 1.5 shows that three European countries stand out as countries with disability employment gaps between 40 and 50 p.p., including Croatia. Only Bulgaria (49 p.p.) and Romania (47 p.p.) face employment gaps that are even larger than in Croatia (42 p.p.). The average of all European countries is “only” around 29 p.p., an average that also remains largely unchanged when including non-European OECD countries (OECD, 2022[2]).
The data in Figure 1.5 as well as all other figures compared in this section are derived from a survey which has its focus on income and material living conditions in European countries, not on disability. Disability status in this survey is derived from a relatively simple screen tool, the GALI instrument, which is based on only two questions. Survey respondents are asked if they have a chronic or longstanding health condition or disability and, if so, whether their condition or disability hampers them in their activities of daily living. While this is a valuable addition increasingly used in all European surveys, unsurprisingly, such a simplified measure comes with relatively high volatility in responses. The comparability of results based on such a measure of disability, across countries but also within countries over time, has often been criticised.
Estimates of disability prevalence based on the GALI instrument indeed show a considerable variation between countries which is difficult to explain. The share of people reporting chronic health conditions or disability that affects their daily living ranges from 7% of the working-age population in Bulgaria and Italy to almost 25% in Norway and Latvia (Figure 1.6, Panel A). Such large differences cannot be explained by actual health differences and likely reflect considerable difference in disability awareness and stigma. The problem for any comparisons of social or employment inclusion based on such large differences in disability prevalence is evident. Countries with high prevalence presumably are likely to include more people with less severe problems and, thus, better employment potential in the group of people with disability.
Disability employment gaps, 2023
Note: The disability employment gap is defined as the employment rate of persons without disability minus those with disability. The line represents the unweighted average of the 26 European OECD Member and accession countries shown.
Source: OECD calculations based on the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), 2023.
A simple way of adjusting the disability employment gap for differences in the disability prevalence, which is also used in OECD (2022[2]), is to multiply the gap by the disability prevalence. This is a neat solution because the resulting new indicator can be interpreted as the share of the working-age population that is “deprived” from working because of their disability. A high share can result from a particularly large gap in the employment rate or a particularly high share reporting a disability, or both.
Figure 1.6, Panel B shows the resulting adjusted employment gap, i.e. the proportion of people in every country that are not employed because of disability. Across countries, on average 5% of the population fall in this group. The sequence of countries differs remarkably from the sequence according to the traditional employment gap shown above. However, Croatia stands out as the only country that tops the ranking on both indicators of disability employment gaps: 6.7% of the population are not working because of disability. Only two other countries have equally high shares, Denmark and Norway, which is in both cases in part explained by the high disability prevalence in those two countries. Romania and Bulgaria drop to much lower shares, owing to the relatively low reported disability prevalence in both countries.
It is interesting to note that the disability prevalence in Croatia, as identified by EU-SILC, is actually very similar to the share of the population formally registered in the country’s disability registers. This is unusual insofar as in other countries typically EU-SILC would find a much higher share than any national register. This is explained by the fact that in Croatia a much higher share of people than in other countries formally registers as having a disability, to become eligible for various types of support.
In conclusion, people with disability in Croatia are facing much larger disadvantage than elsewhere, presumably in part related to higher stigma towards disability. Their disadvantage is reflected in very large education, employment and poverty gaps, much larger than in most other European countries. In addition, the relative position of people with disability in Croatia has deteriorated significantly over the past decade, either because their level of inclusion has fallen (e.g. in the case of employment) or because the situation has improved faster for people without disability (e.g. in the case of education).
Improving the social and labour market inclusion of people with disability will require a significant change in policies, in addition to changes in attitudes towards disability, including attitudes of employers and people themselves as well as all stakeholders involved. Improving and harmonising work capacity assessment can be one element in a greater disability reform; a reform which would have to address the responsibilities and incentives of all involved stakeholders and promote a shift towards prevention and early identification of problems, followed by early intervention. Changing disability assessment alone, without embedment into a broader reform agenda, is unlikely to improve labour market inclusion to a significant extent.
Disability prevalence in the working-age population and share of the population not working because of disability
Note: The share of the population not working because of disability, also referred to as the adjusted disability employment gap, is defined as the product of the unadjusted disability employment gap shown Figure 1.5 and the disability prevalence shown in Panel A of Figure 1.6. The lines represent the unweighted average of the 26 European OECD Member and accession countries shown.
Source: OECD calculations based on the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), 2021‑2023.
Traditionally, Croatian disability policy was focussed on providing benefits to people who have (long-term) health conditions or disability, under the assumption that they are unable to work. Over the past 20 years, Croatia has paid increasing attention and shown a deep commitment to improving the labour market and social inclusion of people with disability. In 2007, Croatia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) which promotes and protects the rights of people with disabilities including but not limited to their right to work. The CRPD has significantly shaped the assessment of a person’s disability status in the past almost 20 years across the world. As per the treaty people with disability are those who “have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”. The treaty distinguishes between people with impairments (i.e. problems at the body level) and barriers people face in interacting with their own environment (i.e. problems in performing activities because of underlying health conditions) and emphasises the latter in giving rise to disability.
Following the ratification of the CRPD, Croatia has passed various legislations to improve the labour market integration of people with disability. Policy changes introduced over the last decade focussed on improving professional rehabilitation services and involving employers to facilitate the labour market inclusion of people with disability. These policy changes included, for example, the establishment of four Professional Rehabilitation Centres and continuous improvement of the services they provide as well as facilitating the enrolment of people with disability in professional rehabilitation through increasing the maximum age from 53 to 55 years, increasing the salary compensation paid during professional rehabilitation to the amount of the minimum wage, and allowing the direct inclusion of unemployed people with disability in professional rehabilitation services. In addition, various incentives and obligations for employers were introduced, including a mandatory disability employment quota for larger enterprises, an assessment and corresponding funding for workplace accommodations for people with disability, reimbursement of the contributions paid to health insurance for an employed person with a disability, and support for the sustainability of self-employment (The Government of the Republic of Croatia, 2017[3]; The Government of the Republic of Croatia, 2021[4]). More recent changes include the introduction of a new Social Welfare Act, in February 2022, which abolished the means-testing for social welfare benefits provided for people with ill health and the introduction of the Personal Assistance Act, in July 2023, and the Act on an Inclusive Supplement, in January 2024, which increased financial benefits for people with impaired state of health.
Another important change introduced in recent years was the establishment of a single assessment body, the Institute for Disability Assessment, Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities [Zavod za vještačenje, profesionalnu rehabilitaciju i zapošljavanje osoba s invaliditetom] (ZOSI) in 2015. This was a key step opening the doors for a less fragmented and more unified disability and work capacity assessment, but further change is needed through harmonising different assessments of disability conducted for different institutions and ensuring they align with the principles of the CRPD.
References
[2] OECD (2022), Disability, Work and Inclusion: Mainstreaming in All Policies and Practices, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1eaa5e9c-en.
[1] OECD (2010), Sickness, Disability and Work: Breaking the Barriers: A Synthesis of Findings across OECD Countries, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264088856-en.
[4] The Government of the Republic of Croatia (2021), National Strategy for Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities 2021 - 2027.
[3] The Government of the Republic of Croatia (2017), National Strategy for Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities 2017 - 2020.