Socio-economic inequality in the occurrence of disability in India: evidence from a large scale sample survey

Mohammad Hifzur Rahman, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Background: As there is no direct mortality associated with disabilities, they remain at the bottom of the government’s priority list. So the researches related to disability in India are limited. Moreover, limited studies used the inequality measures to understand the inequality in occurrence of these disabilities. Objective: We use data from India Human Development Survey conducted in 2004-05 to test the hypotheses: Occurrence of different kinds of disabilities is not associated with economic condition of the population. Methods: The present study had measured four outcome variables: locomotor disability, visual impairment, hearing impairment and speech disability. Bivariate analyses, rich-poor ratio, Concentration curves, concentration indices, dominance test, binary logistic regression models and Wald test were used. Results: Findings of the study reject the hypothesis. Findings suggest huge socio-economic inequalities in the occurrence of different kinds of disability. Poorer sections of the society have the disproportionately higher prevalence of all types of disability.