Paper short abstract:

Poverty measures are computed using the assumption that every person presents similar patterns of consumption or deprivation, however, people with disabilities have specific characteristics that increase their risk of poverty but are most of the time not captured by poverty measures.

Paper long abstract:

According to the world health organisation (WHO, 2022), 16% of the world's population lives with a type of disability, and around 80% of persons with disabilities live in low and middle-income countries. Although the increase in recognition of the additional needs that persons with disabilities have the extra costs associated with disabilities and their higher risk of income and multidimensional poverty, most countries have produced and implemented poverty measures that do not acknowledge the additional needs of persons with disabilities. Therefore, poverty measures (income and multidimensional) are not capturing an essential group of persons with disabilities and their families, who are probably living in poverty and are ignored by poverty strategies. This paper explores how poverty measures have included (or not) the needs of persons with disabilities. We will emphasise multidimensional poverty measures, recognising that normative decisions taken in the process of designing the measure can facilitate the inclusion of the needs of persons with disabilities. We analyse 20 national Multidimensional Poverty Measures of Latin America, Africa and Asia countries and explore how indicators capture (or do not) the needs of persons with disabilities. The results show that most governments have ignored the unique needs of persons with disabilities, have not included aspects related to accessibility or equal opportunities, and some normative decisions assume that persons with disabilities are non-deprived.