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Spatial Variation in the Poverty Gap Between People With and Without Disabilities: Evidence from Vietnam

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Abstract

Poverty and disability are interrelated, but data that can disentangle to what extent one causes the other and vice versa is not available. However, data from Vietnam allows us to examine this interrelationship in a way not done previously. Using small area estimation techniques, we uncover three findings not yet found in the literature. First, disability prevalence rates vary significantly within a country even at the district level. Second, the poverty gap between people with and without disabilities also varies at the district level. And most importantly, the size of that gap lessens based on district characteristics that can be affected by policy. Districts with better health care and infrastructure, such as road and health services, show less of a link between disability and poverty, supporting the hypothesis that improvements in infrastructure and rehabilitation service can lessen the impact of disability on families with disabled members.

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Fig. 1

Source: Estimates from the 2009 VPHC

Fig. 2

Source: Estimates from the 2009 VPHC

Fig. 3

Source: Estimates from the 2009 VPHC and the 2010 VHLSS

Fig. 4

Source: Estimates from the 2009 VPHC and the 2010 VHLSS

Fig. 5

Source: Estimates from the 2009 VPHDC and the 2010 VHLSS

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Notes

  1. Administratively, Vietnam is divided into 63 provinces. Each province is divided into districts, and each district is further divided into communes (communes are called wards in urban areas). Communes are the smallest administrative areas. In 2009, there were 690 districts and 10,896 communes.

  2. There is a full population census which was conducted in April 2009. However, this census contains only limited data on basic demographic and housing data. There are no data on disability in the full census. Thus we do not use the full census in this study.

  3. Also see at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/washington_group.htm.

  4. Following Foster et al. (1984) the FGT class of poverty measures take the following form:

    $$FGT(\alpha ) = \left(\frac{1}{{\sum {w_{i} } }}\right)\sum {w_{i} (1 - (y_{i} /z))^{\alpha } }$$

    where yi is per capita expenditure for those individuals with weight wi below the poverty line and zero for those above, z is the poverty line and \(\sum {w_{i} }\) is total population size. \(\alpha\) is equal to 0 for the poverty rate, 1 for the poverty gap index (also called the poverty depth index), and 2 for the squared poverty gap index (also called the poverty severity index).

  5. The WG recommended six census questions, but set the minimum useful set as four questions, recognizing that space on censuses is often tight and some countries were resistant to including all six questions. Vietnam was one such country—and as such there is probably an underestimation of the rate of disability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre, University College London, London, UK

    Daniel Mont

  2. National Economics University, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Cuong Nguyen

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  1. Daniel Mont
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  2. Cuong Nguyen
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Correspondence to Cuong Nguyen.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 8.

Table 8 Distribution of people by difficulty level in functional domains.
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Mont, D., Nguyen, C. Spatial Variation in the Poverty Gap Between People With and Without Disabilities: Evidence from Vietnam. Soc Indic Res 137, 745–763 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1619-z

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