An aging population and growing awareness mean the number of people known to be living with disabilities is on the rise in Canada, says a newly released report.

More people with disabilities have access to jobs and the tools and aids they need, says the study, but the wage gap between those with disabilities and those without is growing.

"The challenges people with disabilities face in their day-to-day lives are numerous and often go unnoticed," Human Resources Minister Diane Finley says in the introduction to the 2009 Federal Disability Report.

The 61-page national portrait of disability shows that about 4.4 million Canadians — one in seven — now has a disability, an increase from earlier this decade.

The report crunches newly released data from the 2006 census and compares it with similar numbers in the 2001 census.

Then, 12.4 per cent of Canadians reported having a disability. Now, the disability rate has climbed more than two percentage points, to 14.3 per cent.

The analysis cites the aging of the population for much of the increase. While all age groups saw some rise in the disability rate, adults over 65 saw their rate climb faster than other groups.

Learning disabilities also on the rise

The research also points to an increase in reported learning disabilities. About 2.5 per cent of the country's adult population has a learning disability, compared with just 1.9 per cent in the 2001 data.

In general, women have a higher disability rate than men, but the reverse is true among children. About 17.7 per cent of adult women have a disability, compared with just 15.4 per cent of men. Among those under 14 years of age, 4.6 per cent of boys have a disability compared with just 2.7 per cent of girls.

The most common current types of disability are related to an aging population: pain, mobility and agility.

But adults with disabilities are far more successful at meeting their needs for aids and devices now than in 2001. The recent data show that more than 56 per cent of adults said all their needs were fully met, compared with just 17.4 per cent earlier.

The improvement was particularly noticeable among people with learning disabilities, and among seniors, the report said. However, younger people and people with communication disabilities saw a deterioration in their needs being met.

Those who can't obtain the necessary aids and devices most often cite cost as the key reason, the report says.

Improvements in access to education, jobs noted

Generally, people with disabilities are now better educated and are finding it easier to land a job, the report found.

Almost three-quarters of working-age adults with disabilities have at least a high school diploma, an improvement of more than 12 percentage points since 2001.

And employment among working-age Canadians with disabilities rose four percentage points from 2001, to 53.5 per cent in 2006.

However, people with disabilities still earn much less than people without disabilities, and the gap has grown. Women with disabilities earn far less than men with disabilities.

Anna MacQuarrie, director of policy and programs for the Canadian Association for Community Living, says about 750,000 Canadians live with intellectual disabilities and they are predominantly among the poorest of the poor in Canada.

"What we've seen is a stagnant poverty that is persistent and staggering," she said in an interview Monday. "It's largely without change and remarkably troubling."

People with intellectual disabilities frequently complain of not finding permanent work or failing to gain access to the help they need to get by with dignity, she said.