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Examining Disability and Poverty in France

Examining Disability and Poverty in FranceDisability is affecting 12 million people in France. Limited mobility and sensation not only prevents disabled people from normal daily and professional life but they also lead to a higher risk of poverty. According to Eurostat, disability and poverty in France go hand in hand. In 2018, 21% of the French population over 16 years old with a disability were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared with less than 15% of those with no limitation. This considerable gap exists across the European Union, although the proportion of each member state varies significantly. On average, the possibility for a disabled EU citizen to suffer from poverty is about 10% greater than that of their counterparts.

Governmental Policies

In 2018, the French government rolled out a comprehensive and interministerial policy to increase resources available to the disabled population and to improve their living conditions. This policy embraced housing, health, education, work, transport as well as access to culture, sport and recreational activities. In the following five years, the government determined to provide disabled people with a preferential allocation of social housing for rent, develop health prevention among disabled people and enhance the status of healthcare workers and reduce the gap between the unemployment rate among citizens with disabilities and non-disabled people.

Allowance for Disabled Adults (AAH)

Regarding the correlation between disability and poverty in France, the French government has already achieved its 2019 goal of increasing the Allowance for disabled adults (Allocation aux adultes handicapés/ AAH) to €900 per month. AAH is a minimum-income awarded to people over 20 years old with severe disabilities rated by the Committee for the Rights and Self-dependency of Disabled Persons (CDAPH).

A French resident with a disability severity rating of at least 80% can benefit from AAH for a period of one to 10 years, depending on each particular case. For those rated between 50% and 79% with a substantial reduction of access to employment, they are eligible for AAH for one to five years. As of 2020, the maximum AAH is €902.70 per month, with annual income ceilings of around €11,000 for a person living alone and around €20,000 for a couple.

Facilities and Mobilities

French law requires that all new buildings and existing public buildings must be adapted and accessible to people with disabilities. The transformations have to take some time, yet large cities such as Paris and Lyon and some popular touristic regions have become much more accessible in recent years. For example, all buses in Paris are now equipped with platforms facilitating passengers with limited ability to get on and off more easily. Additionally, any disabled resident of France can request a carte mobilité inclusion (CMI) that grants them priority access to seating in public transport and free parking.

Although the government and social organizations are taking various actions to improve the well-being of people with disabilities and poverty in France, the current situation is hardly satisfying. Joncour, a 19-year-old university student and non-verbal autistic, complains that the departmental home for people with disabilities (MDPH) can only grant him three hours a day of subsidized personal assistance. The remaining hours cost the family about €1,000 per month so that he can go to class and have a normal life like his peers. This expense has enormously impacted the daily life of the family and sadly drove them to a precarious position. There is still a long way to go to improve the living standards of those with disabilities and poverty in France. Hopefully, after the five-year term of the new policies, the living conditions of disabled people will significantly improve in France.

– Jingyan Zhang
Photo: Flickr

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How to Reduce Poverty Among the Disabled Worldwide

Reduce poverty among the disabled
Eliminating global poverty requires both aid organizations and the global community to recognize and ensure the rights of people with disabilities. At least one billion people worldwide experience some type of disability, and many of those people account for the world’s poor. Evidence suggests that people with disabilities represent a large selection of the world’s poor. The World Health Survey data shows that in five out of 15 developing countries, households where at least one family had a disability, had significantly fewer assets and lower levels of income.

Poverty and Disabilities

Economic inequality is exacerbated by discrimination that has manifested as a lack of employment opportunities for disabled people, especially in developing countries. The difficult economic circumstances facing impoverished, disabled persons and the lack of opportunities for upward mobility can have life-threatening consequences.

The World Health Organization’s World Report on Disability found that people with disabilities were found to be 20 percent less likely to be able to afford necessary healthcare. Poverty exacerbates the effects of all of these externalities, which makes it extremely crucial to address these issues in developing nations and begin reducing the poverty of the disabled.

It’s also important to recognize the interconnectedness of all of these issues and that they stem from institutional barriers and an uneven distribution of opportunities. Poverty and inequality are inevitably linked, which means that a focus on reducing the inequality of economic opportunities will reduce poverty as well.

This poverty reduction doesn’t solely apply to disabled people. The International Labor Organization conducted a study of 10 low-income developing countries and found that an estimated 3-7 percent of GDP is lost each year due to the exclusion of disabled people from the labor market.

Everyone benefits from providing employment opportunities for disabled people and uplifting them out of poverty, but it requires tearing down the negative social and political barriers that have pervaded society in regards to the disabled population. This is the only way to effectively reduce poverty. One organization has worked with developing nations across the world to ensure a disabled person’s right to a life without poverty.

The Disability Rights Fund

The Disability Rights Fund (DRF) is an organization that promotes advocacy for people with disabilities by empowering those identifying as disabled to advocate for themselves. The group has expanded its efforts to several developing nations. They’ve worked to increase the participation of disabled people to advocate for the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons. Their leaders provide grants and support systems that promote the economic well-being of disabled people in developing nations.

Albert Mollah of The Access Bangladesh Foundation spoke highly of the positive effect one of these grants had on their operations. A grant from The Disability Rights Fund allowed them to meet with several disabled persons’ organizations to provide feedback to the Bangladeshi government on how to improve the livelihoods of their disabled constituents.

The Access to Bangladesh Foundation recommended that the government include persons with disabilities in all safety net programs, raise awareness among duty bearers about the contributions that those with disabilities can make in society, track data and ensure access and disability inclusion to infrastructure and information.

Grants from The Disability Rights Fund have had similar success with the OHANA group in Indonesia and the Uganda National Association of the Deaf. The DRF pools its vast resources and directs them towards groups that are credibly working to alleviate the impacts of inequality for the poor and disabled.

Disabled people are particularly susceptible to poverty because of cultural misconceptions. Concentrated efforts against the social and political barriers faced by the disabled will help to reduce poverty and spread awareness of the issue. Combating the marginalization of the disabled by these cultural misconceptions will help everyone by opening access to a plethora of highly skilled workers.

– Anand Tayal
Photo: Flickr