Disability-related costs and poverty measures in Tanzania

People with disabilities and their families tend to be at disadvantage compared to other households: they are likely to have lower incomes, experience higher poverty rates, and have lower participation outcomes. However, it is argued that current poverty measures underestimate the real poverty levels experienced by people with disabilities. This is because part of their incomes needs to be spent on disability-related goods and services, which inevitably reduces the consumption of other welfare-enhancing items. The implication is that persons with disabilities need to incur higher expenditure to reach the same standard of living (SOL) as other people.

The objective of this study is to explore disability-related costs in Tanzania using available surveys. The aim is to make a comprehensive assessment using information that is commonly found in household surveys, and to determine the impact of such costs on poverty estimates. The paper’s contribution is in providing a more contextual assessment of disability-related costs and conducting this analysis in a low-income country where previous work using the SOL method has shown relatively low-cost estimates.

Available at: https://doi.org/10.55158/DEEPWP27