Multidimensional Poverty status of Individuals with Disability in Pakistan

Abstract

Disability and poverty have a long-standing association, and in recent years, there has been an increase in literature that empirically examines this relationship. However, this relationship is not yet supported by any empirical data at larger scale. In low- and middle-income countries, the prevalence of disabilities is high. The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda aims for a reduction of fifty percent in the national definitions of poverty among men, women, and children of all ages. Additionally, each indicator and target must be broken down by the presence or absence of disabilities. The Ministry of Planning and Commission, the United Nations Development Program, and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative collaborated to produce a national measure of multidimensional poverty for Pakistan in 2015 at the national , provincial and at district level,. This study employs this measure keeping the SDG target 1.2 and using the data of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (2019-2020). In this study household serves as a unit of identification and the individual as an analytical unit. Balochistan, KPK, Sindh, and Punjab are determined to have the highest incidence of poverty. Rural areas of the nation see a higher prevalence of poverty as well. Balochistan and Pakistan's rural towns are also where average poverty is at its deepest. The highest adjusted headcount ratio is in Balochistan, which is followed by Sindh, KPK, and Balochistan. Similar to this, in each province's least developed districts, poverty is highest. At the provincial, regional, and district levels, poverty with regard to disability status also shows a similar pattern. The difference in poverty between groups of people with disabilities and those without disabilities at the provincial level demonstrates that the former group shows higher multidimensionally poverty incidence than the latter. Lastly, economic factors for poor persons with disabilities are examined using logistic regression, and it is discovered that higher income and educational attainment are associated with a lower risk of both poverty and disability. However, a person is more likely to be in vulnerable poverty in terms of disability if that person is a female, married, lives in a remote region, and has no knowledge of IT. This study may prove beneficial for creation of social policies pertaining to multidimensional poverty with reference to disability