Disability

Introduction

Persons with disabilities (PWDs) have been defined as those 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 (Ghana Statistical Service, 2012).

Population with disability

Table 6.1 presents population with disability for the Municipality by sex and type of locality. The Table shows that there are 3,034 persons with some form of disability, which constitute about 3.6 percent of the Municipality population. The major forms or types of disability identified in the Municipality are sight, hearing, speech, and physical. The rest include intellectual, and emotional. On the other hand, emotional (1.6%) is the commonest disability followed by sight (0.9%) with high preponderance of population with disability in urban areas (2.9%) than in rural areas (0.7%).

Type of disability

Figure 6.1 shows the type of disability by sex in the Municipality. Disabilities for which females are more are emotional, hearing and sight. For speech disability, males are more than females with intellectual and physical, intellectual others not specified disabilities are same for both males and females.

Disability and Activity Status

Table 6.2 shows data on the disabled 15 years and older by activity status. The total population with disability who are employed is (56.5%) and those unemployed less than one percent (5.1%), while economically not active 38. percent. The disaggregated data by sex show that disabled males is (59.4%) which is higher than females (54.1%) are employed while more disabled females (40.6%) than males (35.7%) are economically not active.

The data by type of disability and activity status for both sexes further show that proportions of employed vary by type of disability. The disabled with emotional disability has the highest proportion employed (64.2%), while the physical and intellectual has the lowest proportion39.7 percent each. The disaggregation of those who are employed base on male category, shows significant proportions for persons with emotional (64.4%) , sight ( 57.1%), hearing ( 50.5 %) and the least to be speech, physical, intellectual and other not specified disabilities which all less than 50 percent. With regards to females group who are employed reveals emotional (64.0%), sight (51.1%), speech (50.0%) while hearing, physical and intellectual with proportions less 50 percent.

The proportions for persons unemployed show figures that are lower than ten percent for all disabilities for the categories against the various economic statuses. Persons with physical disabilities (57.9%) is high economically not active for both sexes, this is closely followed by persons with intellectual challenges (56.7%) and the least being emotional (28.1%). Regarding the males category persons with other disabilities not specified account for high proportion (54.4%), closely followed by intellectual (54.3%) and physical (51.7%) while the other forms of disabilities accounts for proportions lower than 50 percent. The proportions for the females categories with various forms of disabilities that are employed shows emotion( 64.0%) that accounts for high figure, sight ( 51.1%), speech and other forms of disabilities not specified (50.0%) and the rest of the disabilities representing proportions lower than 50 percent.

Disability, Education and Literacy

Table 6.3 presents population 3 years and older by sex, disability type and level of education. The information on the Table shows that out of the population with disability 3 years and older 29.7 percent have never attended school, 3.7 have attended pre-school, those with basic 51.0 percent while senior high/higher 15.6 percent. There are slightly more females with disability who have never attended school (36.8%) than males (21.6%) also it is shown from the Table that they are more males with disability who have attained pre-school education (4.0%) than females (3.5%) while males with basic education (52.8%) that of females is (49.4%), males who have attained senior high/higher accounts for high proportion (21.6%) than females (10.4%).