Abstract
The notion of disability is a universal one, given that as humans we all experience directly or indirectly some loss of function. How this loss of function is interpreted and managed will, however, differ across different countries, cultures and availability of resources. This has important implications for how we develop cross country comparable measures of disability. This chapter raises different factors that affect such measurements. These include the complexity of disability, the content and context of surveys, potential sources of error in surveys and how these can be managed based on a growing body of evidence testing disability questions in different social, cultural and geographic contexts.
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Notes
- 1.
I use single quotes to show that these are not acceptable category terms or a valid question.
- 2.
Baynton (2001) also highlights how these terms were used to justify inequalities between men and women and between black slaves and their white owners. The feminist movement and black rights movement have gone a long way to addressing these inequalities, and the disability rights movement is slowly gaining ground in addressing these.
- 3.
See U.N. Statistical Division’s DISTAT for examples of such questions still being used in censuses and surveys in a number of countries. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sconcerns/disability/disab2.asp.
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Schneider, M. (2016). Cross-National Issues in Disability Data Collection. In: Altman, B. (eds) International Measurement of Disability. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 61. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28498-9_2
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