Research paperTrends, prospects and deprivation index of disability in India: Evidences from census 2001 and 2011
Section snippets
Data sources
Data for the present study has been taken from the Census of India 2001 and 2011.9, 10 The Indian Census has been the most credible source of information on demographics (population characteristics), economic activity, literacy and education, housing and household amenities, urbanization, fertility and mortality, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, languages, religions, migration, disability, and many other socio-cultural and demographic data since 1872.
India follows a decennial census
Results
A total of 2,68,10,557 (2.21%) persons reported disability in Census 2011 in place of 2,19,06,769 (2.10%) in Census 2001. In the 2001 Census, 57.5% disabled people were male and 42.5% were female, which was almost similar in Census 2011 with 55.9% being male and 44.1% being female.
The result of the study has been organized into four parts:
Discussion
Ethically there should be no difference on the basis of physical/mental ability of the individual. However, in real scenario this may not be true for disabled people while they are experiencing inadequate, unethical treatment and rejection of fundamental rights by the society.18, 19 The unrepresented disabled people are an integral part of the growing population of marginal, weaker and vulnerable sections of the Indian society. The law of the land provides sufficient opportunities for the
Conclusions
People with disability are often discriminated specially in developing countries. Status of the people with disabilities have so far received inadequate consideration in development research given the lack of quality data on disability. They have also habitually been assumed to be an undersized group, reserved for the expert attention of health or rehabilitation professionals and outside the scope of development studies.19 The above analysis shows the severe condition of the disabled in India.
Funding
Ashish Awasthi received financial assistance for his doctoral research from Indian Council of Medical Research, Government of India, New Delhi, India. Manisha Dubey received financial assistance for her doctoral research from University Grants Commission, Government of India, New Delhi, India.
Ethics approval
This study is based on secondary data, which is available in the public domain. Therefore, there was no need to obtain ethical clearance for this study.
Data sharing statement
All the data is available in the public domain through the Office of the Registrar General of India.
Conflict of interest
The authors disclose no conflicts of interest.
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