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- Convenor:
-
Sophie Mitra
(Fordham University)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussants:
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Jean-Francois Trani
(Washington University in St Louis)
Sophie Mitra (Fordham University)
Monica Pinilla Roncancio (Universidad de los andes)
- Format:
- Thematic Panel
- Theme:
- Health inequalities, disability and aging
Short Abstract:
Since 2004, the CA has been used to make comparative assessments of wellbeing across disability status, as this is essential to inform policies and programs towards justice for persons with disabilities (Sen 2009). This panel presents results of three projects grounded in the capability approach that use novel methods to make insightful comparative assessments of wellbeing by disability status.
Long Abstract:
Research Context
Since HDCA’s first conference in 2004, there has been a rapid growth of the literature on disability and the capability approach, much of which has been presented at its annual conference. The capability approach has been used to deal with different disability-related issues. For instance, the capability approach has been considered to respond to the justice demands that may be associated with disability, to evaluate disability-related policies, to bring to light the challenges that need to be addressed for education to be disability-inclusive and to make comparative assessments of wellbeing across disability status.
In fact, Sen’s capability approach of justice (2009) motivates comparative assessments of wellbeing that may lead to insights on the extent and nature of deprivations experienced by persons with disabilities that have implications for policies and reforms designed to remediate them and thus could be justice enhancing. Such assessments may have implications for policies and reforms designed to remediate deprivations and thus could be justice enhancing.
In the past two decades, there have been a growing literature framed within the capability approach making comparative assessments of wellbeing and deprivations for persons with disabilities. This literature has produced a large body of evidence on multidimensional inequalities based on disability status overall, disability type and severity as well as for intersectional groups such as women with disabilities (e.g. Mitra et al 2013; Trani and Cunning 2013; Pinilla-Roncancio & Alkire 2021).
However, there continues to be a general dearth of information on the inequalities that persons with disabilities face across and within countries, including in official statistics and in development studies. National statistics offices rarely disaggregate statistics by disability status and surveys/census reports often only focus on prevalence rates. This makes it challenging to develop, and advocate for, disability-inclusive policies and practices at national and local levels and to evaluate existing policies in terms of their impacts on persons with disabilities. In development studies, where impact evaluation studies have become increasingly used, rarely are results disaggregated to show how interventions may impact persons based on disability status.
Producing statistics and conducting studies disaggregated based on disability is important to inform and monitor national and international laws, policies and commitments, including the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by national as well as local governments.
Goal
This panel will take stock of the CA literature and present research on comparative assessments of wellbeing among persons with disabilities in the global south using novel methods and data.
Methods and preliminary results
The first presentation by Jean-François Trani reports findings for children with disabilities from an educational intervention in 207 rural schools of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The intervention consisted in (i) improving social accountability mechanisms and inclusion of all children in the learning process through participatory Community Based Systems Dynamics workshops, using Group Model Building (GMB) methods that resulted in action ideas decided and implemented by the school community following the workshops (Hovmand 2013); and (ii) an inclusive education project based learning training involving teachers, children and parents. Among the 2570 children recruited at baseline in Afghanistan, 492 were identified as children with disabilities by their teachers, and 14.5% were identified with learning disabilities. Few children with mobility and sensory limitations were enrolled in schools at baseline. At endline, only 126 children were still enrolled in the schools. Due to the high number of children with disabilities dropping out of school, we found that our intervention did not significantly impact children with disabilities’ learning outcomes. However, we did find that children with learning disabilities who stayed in schools improved both academic and nonacademic outcomes more than children without disabilities. This indicates that staying in school does help children catch up and narrow down the performance gap between children with and without disabilities.
The second presentation by Monica Pinilla-Roncancio aims to identify if persons with disabilities and their families are more likely to live in chronic poverty in Chile, Peru and Colombia. We used a new methodology introduced by Loper-Calva et al (2022), which says that a household living in monetary and non-monetary poverty is more likely to be chronically poor than a household living only under a monetary or a multidimensionally poverty line. Using this methodology, the authors estimated the levels of income and multidimensional poverty of households with and without members with disabilities using official definitions. We estimated a biprobit models to calculate the probability of being income, multidimensionally poor and poor under both poverty lines for households with and without members with disabilities in each of the three countries. We also analysed which individual and household characteristics increased the likelihood of being income and multidimensionally poor. The findings suggest that households with members with disabilities are more likely to live in income and multidimensional poverty (chronic poverty) in the three countries compared to households without a member with disabilities.
The third presentation by Sophie Mitra will present a new disability statistics database produced as part of the Disability Data Initiative. The Disability Statistics Database presents internationally comparable disability statistics at national and subnational levels with indicators disaggregated by disability status to inform policy design, public debate and facilitate research on the human rights situation of adults with disabilities and their households. The presentation will show for 40 countries a comparative assessment of wellbeing based on disability status, type and severity at both national and subnational levels using Census, Demographic and Health Survey and other Survey data. It will demonstrate that it is possible to draw a very detailed profile of the human development situation of a traditionally marginalised group. It will derive implications in terms of data collection for countries that yet do not include internationally comparable disability questions in their national censuses and surveys and for data analysis for countries that do have such data.
Conclusion
Overall, this panel will highlight recent research and propose future directions as part of the capability approach agenda of making comparative assessments of wellbeing and deprivations towards justice.
Accepted papers:
Paper short abstract:
aims to identify if persons with disabilities and their families are more likely to live in chronic poverty in Chile, Peru and Colombia
Paper long abstract:
Pinilla-Roncancio M, and Cedeno G.
Chronic poverty of persons with disabilities in Latin American countries.
Keywords: disability, poverty, Latin America
In Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 80 million people live with a disability, and although there is no official statistic, it is expected that persons living with disabilities face higher levels of poverty and are one of the groups that have been left behind from development. Colombia, Peru and Chile are high-middle-income countries. Although they still face important problems related to poverty, the three countries have shown a reduction in income poverty levels in the last years. According to National Statistics in Colombia, more than 4.5% of the population 5 years or older lives with disability, in Peru 5.2% and in Chile 17.6%, in the three countries, persons with disabilities are more likely to be outside the labour market, have lower levels of education, lower social and political participation and face high levels of exclusion. Although the evidence reveals that people with disabilities are one excluded and vulnerable group, in the three countries, this group has been ignored in social protection policies and programmes, and only Peru has a specific income transfer programme for persons with disabilities.
The analysis of poverty for persons with disabilities has been limited to understanding if this group has higher levels of poverty. Still, little evidence exists on the risk of chronic poverty for persons with disabilities and their families. In Latin America, studies have found that persons with disabilities present higher levels of multidimensional poverty, and in some cases, their levels of income poverty are significantly higher. However, to date there is no information on this group's chronic poverty risk in the region. This study aims to contribute to understanding chronic poverty for persons with disabilities in Peru, Chile and Colombia. We used the method designed by Lopez-Calva et al. (2022), where, using information from income and multidimensional poverty, it is possible to estimate the probability of being chronically poor. We used data from the Socioeconomic Conditions Survey from Chile (2021), the Quality-of-Life Survey 2022 in Colombia and the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (2021) in Peru. We estimated a biprobit model where the probability of being income and multidimensionally poor was estimated and the probability of being income and multidimensionally poor simultaneously. The result revealed that in the three countries, persons with disabilities and their families in general face higher levels of multidimensional poverty in comparison with persons without disabilities. In contrast, no significant differences in income poverty were found between persons with and without disabilities in Chile and Peru. In addition, when we analysed the probability of being chronically poor (thus income and multidimensionally poor), we found that persons with disabilities present a larger likelihood of being chronically poor than persons without disabilities in the three countries. In addition, women, persons with lower levels of education, living in rural areas and in households with a larger number of members, are more likely to be chronically poor in comparison with other households.
The results of this study provide evidence on the analysis of chronic poverty of persons with disabilities in Latin America. The findings revealed that persons with disabilities are more likely to be chronically poor. Therefore, there is a need to implement additional strategies to cover their needs and provide support to overcome this group's poverty. Given the lack of social
protection programmes covering this population, it is necessary to re-examine the need to design and implement these programmes in each of the countries included in this study.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation will provide results from the Disability Data Initiative’s Disability Statistics Database and its associated report (both are to be launched in June 2024). It will highlight key results and opportunities for further research documenting wellbeing across disability status.
Paper long abstract:
Expanding capabilities for all requires data and statistics, in particular for groups that have been traditionally disadvantaged and invisible in society. For persons with disabilities, it requires statistics that are based on concepts that are in line with a capability approach to disability, disaggregated by disability status, and reflect various aspects of the lives of persons with disabilities and their diversity.
This presentation will provide results from the Disability Data Initiative’s Disability Statistics Database and its associated report (both are to be launched in June 2024). In particular, it will include (i) a systematic analysis of the disability questions in national censuses and household surveys globally between 2009 and 2023 and (ii) indicators disaggregated across disability status for 40 countries with census or household survey data that are based on internationally comparable disability questions.
This report finds that disability questions that meet international standards of comparability, i.e. those that collect information on functional difficulties (e.g. difficulty seeing, hearing, walking) have been increasingly adopted. Yet, disability questions of any kind are absent in one in four countries and in two-thirds of datasets. In many countries, comparative assessments of wellbeing across disability status are impossible and persons with disabilities continue to be invisible.
The report also presents a microdata analysis for 40 countries with results on functional difficulty prevalence and wellbeing in various domains. In the countries under study, functional difficulties are not rare. Across countries, the median share of the adult population with any functional difficulty stands at 12.6%, while the median share of households with adults with functional difficulty is at 27.8%.
The report also finds significant inequalities associated with functional difficulties in terms of education, health, work and standard of living (e.g. electricity). A disability gap, i.e. a disadvantage for persons with functional difficulties compared to persons with no functional difficulty, is consistently found across countries and disaggregation method in terms of educational attainment, literacy, food insecurity, exposure to shocks, asset ownership, health expenditures and multidimensional poverty.
The presentation will end with implications for further research. Given the availability of internationally comparable statistics, it will propose future research directions to better understand the drivers of inequalities using such statistics. The stark inequalities highlight the urgent need for policies for the rights and the wellbeing of persons with disabilities.
Paper short abstract:
Our study reports findings for children with disabilities from an educational intervention in 207 rural schools of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The intervention consisted in improving social accountability and inclusion of all children in the learning process through a participatory intervention.
Paper long abstract:
According to the latest report from UNICEF, the number of children with disabilities has reached 240 million globally. Afghanistan is among the least developed nations in the world despite two decades of massive international assistance. Children living in conflict-affected fragile states, such as Afghanistan, are less likely to enrol in and attend school, especially those with disabilities. Children with disabilities who can attend school still face enormous barriers, such as poor quality teaching, transportation and security concerns on the way, access to water and sanitation, and overcrowded classrooms. Additionally, in Afghanistan, cultural beliefs foster discrimination of children with disabilities. Studies have documented the importance of parents' involvement, specifically parent-teacher collaboration, to improve learning outcomes. Our project aimed to strengthen teachers' accountability and communities' engagement in education through participatory interventions and inclusive education training. This study reports learning outcomes of children with disabilities.
A Randomized control trial was conducted to measure the impact of a participatory child centered intervention on students learning skills. Multistage randomized sampling methods were used to select 106 intervention schools in three provinces of Afghanistan and two of Pakistan. Analysis of change was used to examine the impact implementing action ideas, and an inclusive education training on the academic and nonacademic outcomes of children. We compared life skills, self-efficacy, and resilience as well as language, math, and general knowledge scores at points in time.
Among the 2570 children recruited at baseline, 492 were identified with a disability, mostly with learning disabilities and fewer with mobility and sensory disabilities. At endline, only 126 children were still in schools. We found that our interventions did not significantly impact children with disabilities’ learning outcomes but overall children with disabilities who stayed in schools improved learning outcomes more than children without disabilities. Staying in school helps children with disabilities catch up.
Our study reveals the challenges of keeping children with disabilities in schools in a conflict setting. However, our data also shows that inclusive education does help to improve the academic and nonacademic skills of children with disabilities and narrow the performance gaps with those without disabilities. With education enrolment of children without disabilities improving around the globe, it is now critical to pay more attention to marginalized children, particularly those with disabilities, and to ensure that education delivered to them is of equal quality to the education received by other children.