A study of 199 GitHub users who publicly identified as having a disability compared their coding activity before and after GitHub Copilot became free for all on 18 December 2024. Using a pre‑post design, the researchers tracked both commit counts and lines of code changed in each user’s repositories. They found that most disability groups had fewer commits but more code modified, and that the distribution of developers across commit‑activity levels shifted to both lower and higher levels, leaving fewer people in the moderate‑activity zone.

When the data were broken down by disability category, only the group that identified simply as “Disabled” showed a statistically significant rise in net lines modified (+3,097). All other groups showed declines in commit counts and mixed changes in lines of code. The analysis concluded that the broader availability of Copilot cannot be linked to a broad increase or decrease in observable development activity.

The study notes that its sample is limited to users who publicly disclosed a disability, which may bias the results toward those who feel comfortable making such disclosures, and limits how widely the findings can be applied.

Visual: --- Table showing within‑group changes in commits and net lines after Copilot’s free release ---