Timor-Leste

Results in this brief are from an analysis of the 2016 Demographic and Health Survey. Information on methodology is in the main text of the report and in the method briefs. Additional results are available in results tables on the DDI website.

In Timor-Leste, the share of adults aged 15 and older with any functional difficulty stands at 21%. As shown in Table 1, it varies from a low of 17.2% in Aileu to a high of 28.3% in Liquica. In all regions, seeing is the most common type of functional difficulty; communication and self-care are the least common.

Region	Any	Seeing	Hearing	Mobility	Cognition	Self-Care	Communication
Aileu	17.2	12.4	7.0	5.8	4.7	3.0	4.8
Ainaro	20.9	15.7	7.6	5.2	5.1	2.8	4.2
Baucau	25.2	19.3	7.7	6.9	4.4	2.9	4.0
Bobonaro	21.2	14.4	6.8	6.1	7.8	2.3	6.6
Covalima	21.6	18.3	7.6	6.4	7.4	4.0	6.8
Dili	14.8	10.8	2.8	2.9	2.1	0.9	1.4
Ermera	17.6	12.7	6.5	7.4	4.3	2.2	4.0
Lautem	23.1	19.3	10.1	8.5	9.1	5.6	9.1
Liquica	28.3	21.4	10.4	11.3	7.5	3.1	7.2
Manatuto	28.1	19.8	6.0	15.1	3.6	6.3	3.7
Manufahi	22.2	18.1	5.5	4.4	3.1	1.8	2.6
Oecussi	23.2	17.1	8.3	6.1	5.9	1.7	4.3
Viqueque	23.9	20.5	6.1	4.7	3.9	3.0	3.7
National	21.0	15.9	6.4	6.3	4.8	2.6	4.2

Notes: ‘Any’ is the share of adults with any level of difficulty (some difficulty, a lot of difficulty or unable to do in one or more functional domains. For instance, ‘Seeing’ is the share of adults with difficulty in seeing of any level. Shares for the six domains do not add up to the share of any difficulty as some individuals may have functional difficulties in more than one domain. Source: Own calculations based on Timor-Leste DHS data.

Multidimensional Poverty

Multidimensional poverty captures an individual’s experience of multiple deprivations (e.g. low educational attainment, having inadequate living conditions). In Timor-Leste, the shares of persons with at least a lot of functional difficulty and some difficulty who are multidimensionally poor stands at 92% and 79.3%, respectively. This is higher than that of persons with no difficulty at 57.1%.

Thus, there is a disability gap in multidimensional poverty between persons with at least a lot of difficulty and no difficulty (35.1 percentage points) and between persons with some difficulty and no difficulty (22.2 percentage points). In other words, persons in Timor-Leste with functional difficulties more frequently experience multiple deprivations than persons without difficulty.

As illustrated in Figure 1/Table 2, multidimensional poverty is common in all regions among adults with functional difficulties. Multidimensional poverty is least common among persons with functional difficulties in Dili.

Figure 1: Timor-Leste: Multidimensional poverty headcount among adults with no, some and at least a lot of difficulty (%)

Figure1a: Adults with no difficulty

Figure 1a maps the share of adults with no difficulty at the regional level in Timor-Leste

Figure 1b: Adults with some difficulty

Figure 1b maps the share of adults with some difficulty at the regional level in Timor-Leste

Figure 1c: Adults with at least a lot of difficulty

Figure 1c maps the share of adults with at least a lot of difficulty at the regional level in Timor-Leste

Legend of Figure 1 This is the legend for different categories of the multidimensional poverty headcount from a low of 20 to 29.9% to a high of 90% and above.
Source: Own calculations based on Timor-Leste DHS data (2018). The notes of Table 1 apply.

Table 2 (Supporting Figure 1): Timor-Leste: Multidimensional poverty headcount among adults with no, some and at least a lot of difficulty (%)

Region	No difficulty	Some difficulty	At least a lot of difficulty
Aileu	59.8	85.2	90.6
Ainaro	81.7	89.0	96.6
Baucau	63.3	81.9	96.3
Bobonaro	65.3	88.6	94.3
Covalima	68.5	87.4	90.1
Dili	25.1	52.9	60.4
Ermera	76.0	90.4	90.2
Lautem	57.5	77.8	97.3
Liquica	60.8	83.5	97.1
Manatuto	61.2	81.2	86.8
Manufahi	63.0	81.3	98.3
Oecussi	75.8	87.3	94.6
Viqueque	70.3	83.7	99.7
National	57.1	79.3	92.0