Impact of Living or Working Environments on Persons with Disabilities

This paper assesses quantitatively the importance of living or working environmental constraints in people's activity limitations in day-to-day work/school and participation restrictions (such as joining in community activities). It applies an Ordered Logit Model to examine data from a WHO/ESCAP pilot study in 2005. Age, school year, and country specific factors are considered in this empirical analysis, with particular attention to gender. Environmental barriers have a negative and statistically significant influence on a person's life activities, after controlling for other determinants. Women and girls with disabilities in developing countries face double discrimination due to their status as a woman and a person with disabilities. The challenges for policy makers in the region are to identify these working or living environmental constraints, to formulate more targeted disability policies and to implement programmes in order to mitigate those barriers. Some areas needing additional research are also highlighted.