Debates about the relationship between poverty and disability continue and are important in that they contribute to policies regarding how best to address the needs of disabled people living in conditions of poverty. Increasingly, researchers have begun to use Sen's capabilities approach in understanding disability. However, the approach has not been adequately applied to understand the nature of the poverty and disability nexus, particularly in developing contexts. This article seeks to address this gap by reporting on evidence from a study conducted in eight of the poorest wards in Johannesburg. Using the capabilities lens we demonstrate the ways in which both poverty and disability compound one another to limit the capabilities of people. The findings point to the need for broad-scale as well as targeted social development policies and programmes to address the consequences of poverty and disability.
Investigations into the relationship between poverty and disability are limited, particularly from a South African perspective. In addition, when this relationship is addressed it is usually in isolation of other social characteristics, such as gender. As such the intersections between disability, gender, race and poverty are often overlooked -yet internationally research points to gender gaps in outcomes for people with disabilities. This briefing seeks to address this gap by reporting on a national study on poverty and disability in South Africa. We make use of the theory of intersectionality as a lens to interpret evidence from a national survey, the South African National Income Dynamics Study (South African Labour and Development Research Unit, 2014). Specifically, we assess how poverty and disability intersect to shape particular outcomes for women as compared to men with disabilities. This briefing demonstrates that in South Africa disability intersects with gender as well as age and race to result in negative outcomes in education, employment and income for all people with disabilities, but particularly black women with disabilities. Evidence is provided for what we theorise to be the case -that disability and gender intersect to compound negative outcomes for black women with disabilities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.