Disability

Persons With disability (PWDs) can be described as those persons who are unable to or are restricted in the performance of specific tasks/activities due to loss of function of some part of the body as a result of impairment or malformation (GSS, 2012).

Data on PWDs were collected during the 2010 Population and Housing Census to help understand the disability situation in the country in terms of the types of disability to guide policy making in this regard.

Population with Disability

Table 6.1 indicates that, out of the total population of 148,099 enumerated in the district, there are 2,166 PWDs representing 1.5 percent of the total district population. Based on comparison by sex, the proportion of males with disabilities (1.5%) is not too different compared to the females (1.4%).

Type of Disability

Table 6.1 further provides data on the types of disability by sex. The table reveals that sight disability is the most common in the district and represents 30.3 percent of all types of disability identified in the 2010 PHC. It is followed in terms of magnitude by physical (28.5%), hearing (16.9%), speech (14.3%), intellectual (14.2%) and emotional (12.5%) disabilities. Other disabilities not identified by name also form 13.8 percent. By sex, it is to be noted that the proportion of females that reported some form of disability were higher than or the same as the males for each type of disability except in the case of speech and other disabilities for which the reverse is true.

Distribution by Type of Locality

In terms of type of locality, Table 6.1 also shows that there is virtually no difference between the urban and rural areas based on the proportion of PWDs considering that 1.4 percent and 1.5 percent of the urban and rural populations are recorded as having some form of disability. There are, however, some important variations that need to be highlighted. For example, in the urban areas, the proportion with sight disability (31.8%) is the highest while emotional disability records the lowest proportion (12.2%) of all reported cases of disability. In contrast, the highest and lowest proportions of PWDs are respectively those with physical (33.3%) and speech (11.7%) disabilities in the rural areas.

The pattern of type of disability by sex is also not different from that shown in the general population. With the exception of speech, emotional and other disabilities in the urban areas and also physical, speech and other disabilities in the rural areas, the proportion of PWDs among the females is the same or relatively higher than among the males in the Sagnarigu District.

Disability and Activity

This section discusses disability by economic activity status of persons 15 years and older in the district. Data from Table 6.2 show that less than half (45.8%) of the population 15 years and older with some disabilities are economically active, of which 41.8 percent are employed and 4.0 percent unemployed, while more than half (54.2%) of them are economically not active. In all cases of disability, 45 percent or less of PWDs are employed compared to 54.6 percent among persons with no disability. Overall, persons with intellectual and physical disabilities have the lowest proportion employed (29.3% and 30.0% respectively) while their counterparts with emotional disability have the highest proportion of their members employed (45.4%).

Comparing them by sex also reveals that in all cases of disability type, the proportion employed is higher among the males than the females. This means that employers are more inclined to employ males who have some disabilities than females with similar conditions which may imply some form of gender discrimination against the females with disabilities.

Disability, Education and Literacy

Literacy and education are fundamental indicators for a country’s human capital development. The collection of data on these indicators in a census is, therefore, significant for any country.

Table 6.3 presents the distribution of the population three years and older by level of education and disability type. The table indicates that more than half (52.7%) of persons with various forms of disability in the district have never attended school compared with one in three in the total population as well as among persons with no disability.

As usual, the gap between males and females is quite visible within the general population and by each type of disability. Among persons with disability, the proportion with no education is as high as 48.2 percent and 54.4 percent respectively among the males and females in the district. It is also observed that persons with speech disability recorded the lowest proportion (39.3%) with no education in contrast with their counterparts with physical disability who recorded the highest proportion (61.6%) with no education. By sex, however, persons with sight disability have the highest proportion with no education among the males, but among the females, it is among persons with physical disability.

Just like in the general population, however, the lowest proportion with no education is recorded among persons with speech disability. At the same time, females with disability have the highest proportion with no education among each disability type compared to the males. The table further shows variations in school attendance by disability status and type as well as by sex. At all levels of educational attainment, the females are disadvantaged irrespective of whether or not they have some form of disabilities