In the EU, 26.8% of people aged 16 years and over reported some or severe long-standing limitations in their usual activities due to health problems (disability) in 2023: 19.6% reported some limitation and 7.2% reported a severe limitation.
Across the EU countries, the share of people who reported a disability in 2023 ranged from 11.9% in Luxembourg, 13.6% in Bulgaria and 13.8% in Malta to an astonishing 40.7% in Latvia. Latvia was the only country to record a figure of more than 40% with second-placed Denmark on 36.7%.
Looking in more detail, Estonia recorded the highest share of people reporting a severe limitation (11.5%), while Latvia had the highest share of people reporting some limitation (30.6%).
In 2023, men were less likely than women to report a disability. This pattern was repeated in all of the EU countries, with the widest gender gaps recorded in Romania, Portugal, Latvia and Finland (7.9 to 9.7 percentage points).
Cyprus and Slovenia had the smallest differences between the sexes, as the share of women reporting a disability was at most 1.0 point above the corresponding share for men.
In Latvia, a third of all women (32.9%) reported some degree of disability, while 11.5% reported severe disability. For men the equivalent figures were 30.6% and 10.1%.
