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Accepted Paper:
Paper short abstract:
Social protection policies targeted on the disabled are not frequently evaluated in the context of developing countries. I have evaluated Indira Gandhi National Disability Programme, a social protection policy targeted on poor disabled in India on income, multidimensional poverty, and medical exp
Paper long abstract:
The paper examines the impact of the Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension Scheme
(IGNDPS), a social assistance programme targeted at poor, disabled persons in India. Although
disability affects all aspects of life, it is well known that people who are disabled incur a higher
level of medical expenditure and experience higher levels of poverty and those households
have lower earnings. This paper evaluates if access to IGNDPS reduces economic and
multidimensional poverty and improves the allocation of expenses incurred for medical
purposes and household earnings. For this purpose, we have combined propensity score
matching and the difference-in-differences method in a three-way fixed effect setting in panel
data. Further, we have also weighted the regression estimates with their propensity score to
address concerns on sample selection bias. Our empirical results suggest that access to the
Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension Scheme (IGNDPS) has helped households increase
the share of expenses incurred on in-patient medical services. Sex-based disaggregated results
suggest that the female programme recipients have experienced a higher level of economic and
multidimensional poverty and a decline in the share of out-patient medical expenses.
We also find that there are regional heterogeneities in the results. The programme has helped
recipients living in metro regions to reduce multidimensional poverty, with no such effects
found in the non-metro areas. Overall, the results obtained from the paper suggest that the
social assistance programme has not reduced the burdens faced by the disabled.
Rethinking Disability Connection and Agency for Development
Session 1 Friday 30 June, 2023, -