Persons with disabilities face substantial barriers that impede their integration and participation in social and economic activities. Households with disabled members may be vulnerable to poverty due to the extra cost of living with a disability. However, there exists a knowledge gap in the magnitude of the extra cost of disabilities in sub Saharan Africa. Using data from a nationally representative household survey, this paper estimates the extra cost of disabilities in Ghana. The paper further examines the welfare effects of households with persons with disabilities. Based on the standard of living approach, we estimate the extra cost to households with a person with disability to be 26% of annual household consumption expenditures. Adjusting for the extra cost of poverty, the incidence of poverty increases from 38.5 to 52.9% amongst households with a disabled member. Our findings suggest the need to improve the efficiency of support programs to persons with disabilities to mitigate the extra costs of disabilities and reduce their vulnerability to poverty. In addition, enhancing access to economic opportunities and social services for persons with disabilities will be imperative to improve their quality of life and dignity.

残疾人面临巨大的障碍，阻碍他们的融合和参与社会和经济活动。有残障人士的家庭可能由于额外的残障生活成本而容易陷入贫困。但是，撒哈拉以南非洲地区在残疾额外成本的数量上存在知识差距。本文使用来自全国有代表性的家庭调查的数据，估算了加纳的残疾额外费用。本文进一步考察了残疾人家庭的福利影响。根据生活水平的标准，我们估计残疾人家庭的额外费用为家庭年消费支出的26％。调整贫困的额外成本后，贫困发生率从38.5增加到52。有残疾成员的家庭中有9％。我们的研究结果表明，有必要提高对残疾人的支持计划的效率，以减轻残疾人的额外费用并减少其对贫困的脆弱性。此外，必须提高残疾人获得经济机会和社会服务的机会，以改善其生活质量和尊严。