Conclusion
Go Back The object of This Report is two-fold: first, it conducts a comprehensive review of disability questions in national censuses and household surveys globally from 2009 to 2021; second, it presents analyses on 32 socioeconomic indicators for 35 countries disaggregated by disability status, where disability is measured through WG-SS using MICS6 data.
Key Findings
Dataset Review
This Report examines the questionnaires of 531 surveys and censuses to identify those with functional difficulty questions. Based on this review and the results from the 2021 Report, only 21% of the datasets have functional difficulty questions. Only 10% of datasets have the internationally tested and comparable WG-SS. This is however an improvement compared to results of the 2021 Report due largely to the inclusion of the WG-SS in MICS6 in many countries in recent years.
Disaggregation
Among women aged 18 to 49 in 35 countries, disaggregation by functional difficulty status is feasible using MICS6 data. We find inequalities associated with functional difficulties in all areas of wellbeing studied, particularly educational attainment, ICT, sexual and reproductive health, multidimensional poverty, discrimination, safety and subjective wellbeing.
As in the 2021 Report, for some indicators, there is a graded association between functional difficulty and disadvantage. For instance, for educational attainment and subjective wellbeing, women with some functional difficulties are, on average, worse off than women with no difficulties, but better off than women who report at least a lot of difficulty.
In the countries included in the study, less than 20 % of women with seeing difficulties use glasses while 2% of women with hearing difficulties use hearing aids.
For some indicators, the interaction of functional difficulties with certain demographic factors such as age and residence amplify deprivations. For instance, in terms of educational attainment, women who live in rural areas and middle-aged women seem to be worse off than their urban and younger counterparts.
For some indicators, larger disability gaps are associated with higher levels of human development. Inequalities related to education, personal activities (cell phone ownership), feeling discriminated against, subjective wellbeing, and multidimensional poverty are found to be significantly larger in countries at higher levels of development.
Implications
Implications for Data Collection
The inclusion of WG-SS in MICS6 for many countries has made a significant impact in terms of data availability worldwide. However, much work remains for the inclusion of functional difficulty questions in national socioeconomic surveys and population censuses in all countries. For instance, HFPS datasets, critical in documenting the situation of households during the pandemic, should include functional difficulty questions. Large survey programs such as SILC could also improve the availability of data in Europe with the inclusion of functional difficulty questions. This way, we can gain more insight on the situation of persons and households with disabilities and inform policies for the implementation of the CRPD and the attainment of the SDGs.
Implications for Data Analysis and Research
Like the 2021 Report, this Report demonstrates that for many countries, measuring disability inequalities and disaggregating socioeconomic indicators is feasible. In this Report, this is done with data from an international data collection program, MICS6.
This Report finds a positive relationship between the severity of functional difficulties and the magnitude of the disability gap, what we refer to as a gradient. The recommendation by the Washington Group to separate analyses of persons with at least a lot of difficulty, on the one hand, from persons with some and no difficulty, on the other hand, may therefore underestimate inequalities. Analyses should try to incorporate the degree of functional difficulties through three different categories: no vs. some vs. at least a lot of difficulty.
Studies on subjective wellbeing should consider functional difficulties given the strong correlations found in this report. In addition, the disproportionately higher share of women who report being discriminated against should prompt further research in this area to document such discriminations and derive policy implications.
The larger disability gaps found in countries at higher levels of development for instance for multidimensional poverty warrant further research as such a pattern may suggest that development processes are not disability inclusive.
Overall, the inequalities presented in this Report should serve only as a starting point. More in-depth investigation within countries is necessary to determine the environmental and resource factors that drive these results in order to inform policy.
Implications for Policy
Results from this Report suggests there is a very large unmet need for assistive technology including glasses and hearing aids. The lack of assistive technology may drive some of the inequalities that are highlighted in this report and requires policy attention to strengthen the supply and access to assistive technology and related services.
For women, functional difficulties are associated with deprivations, in particular with respect to education, ICT, sexual and reproductive health, multidimensional poverty, discrimination, safety and subjective wellbeing. While most of the countries under study have ratified the CRPD, more work is needed to address intersectional disadvantages and improve the situation of women with disabilities.