Chronic poverty and disability in Latin America: the case of Chile, Colombia and Peru

In Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 80 million people live with a disability, and they are more likely to experience poverty and exclusion from development efforts. This article examines whether people with disabilities are at higher risk of chronic poverty in Peru, Chile, and Colombia. Using the method proposed by Bolch et al. (2023), we estimate the probability of chronic poverty by analysing the interaction between income poverty and multidimensional poverty. We use data from CASEN 2022 (Chile), ECV 2022 (Colombia), and ENAHO 2022 (Peru), applying a biprobit model to estimate the likelihood of experiencing income poverty, multidimensional poverty, or both simultaneously. Across all three countries, households with members with disabilities show higher levels of multidimensional poverty. In Chile, no significant differences were found in income poverty. Overall, households with members with disabilities are significantly more likely to experience chronic poverty than those without.