Disabled Girls Face Poorer Prospects 3 to 5 Years After School

By Debra Viadero

A new national study suggests that young women with disabilities face more dismal prospects for life after high school than do their male counterparts.

Three to five years after leaving school, the data suggest, disabled women are much more likely than disabled men--and even nonhandicapped women--to be raising children. They are less likely than their male peers to have full-time jobs, to be getting postsecondary training, and to belong to any community groups.

And the gap in employment rates between disabled young males and females tends...