Socio-economic disparity in the occurrence of disability among older adults in six low and middle income countries

Nearly 200m people in the world experience considerable functioning difficulties. Also, more than three-fourth of the population aged 50 years and over is suffering from some kind of disability in India, China, Ghana, Russia, Mexico and South Africa. Despite the compelling nature of this issue, evidence on socioeconomic disparity in the occurrence of disability is lacking throughout the world and particularly in the aforementioned countries. The purpose of this paper is twofold – first, to examine the socioeconomic inequalities in the prevalence of disability in the selected countries; and second, to investigate the cross-country differentials in the prevalence of disability by socioeconomic characteristics.

The authors use data from the Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) conducted in China, Ghana, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa during 2007–2010. Disability scores have been constructed using Item Response Theory Partial Credit Model based on eight health and functioning domains. Bivariate analysis, concentration curves, concentration indices and multivariate regressions have been used in the analysis presented in this paper.

The authors find that the prevalence of disability varied considerably across sociodemographic groups. Moreover, this variation is not uniform across all countries. Also, age, Sex, work status, years of schooling and economic status emerged out as significant predictors of disability among the studied countries.

This is perhaps the first study which examines the socioeconomic inequality in disability conceptualized in a comprehensive manner among older adults spread across low to upper middle income countries. The alarming level of prevalence of disability among sociodemographic disadvantage groups calls for immediate attention in terms of detailed study of risk factors, effective policy and timely intervention.