‘60% of people underestimate the number of disabled people in Britain today.’
This is according to a May 2018 report by Scope on attitudes towards disability in the UK.
Scope finds that one in three disabled people feel there is a lot of disability prejudice in Britain today, but only one in five non-disabled people agree.
Furthermore, the gap between disabled and non-disabled people’s impression of negative attitudes has trebled over the last 20 years.
These findings show that a lack of understanding of disability and negative attitudes towards disabled people is still far too common in our society.
The report authors suggest the following to close this perception gap:
- Government to launch a new cross-departmental disability strategy
- Increase the number of disabled people in work, with the goal of one million more disabled people in employment
- Better representation of disabled people in media and creative industries
