Background Over four million people in Australia have some form of disability, of whom 2.1 million are of working age. This paper estimates the costs of disability in Australia using the standard-of-living approach. This approach defines the cost of disability as additional income required for people with a disability to achieve a similar living standard to those without a disability. We analyse data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey using a hybrid panel data model. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the costs of disability in Australia using a high quality, large, nationally-representative longitudinal data set. Methods This study estimates the costs of disability in Australia by using the Standard of Living (SoL) and a dynamic model approach. It examines the dynamics of disability and income by using lagged disability and income status. The study also controls for unobserved individual heterogeneity and endogeneity of income. The longitudinal specification in this study allows us to separate short- and long-run costs of disability using a hybrid panel data regression approach. Results Our results show that people with a disability need to increase their adult-equivalent disposable income by 50% (in the short-run) to achieve the same standard of living as those without a disability. This figure varies considerably according to the severity of the disability, ranging from 19% for people without work-related limitations to 102% for people with severe limitations. Further, the average cost of disability in the long-run is higher and it is 63% of the adult-equivalent disposable income. Conclusions Firstly, our results show that with the same level of income, the living standard is lower in households with people with a disability compared to households without members with a disability. This indicates a strong relationship between poverty and disability. However, current poverty measures do not take into account disability, therefore, they fail to consider substantial differences in poverty rates between people with and without a disability. Secondly, the estimated costs reflected in this study do consider foregone income due to disability. Therefore, policymakers should seriously consider adopting disability-adjusted poverty and inequality measurements. Thirdly, increasing the income (e.g. through government payments) or providing subsidised services for people with a disability may increase their financial satisfaction, leading to an improved living standard. The results of this study can serve as a baseline for the evaluation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

中文翻译：

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澳大利亚的残疾成本：混合面板数据检查

背景信息澳大利亚有超过四百万人患有某种形式的残疾，其中210万为工作年龄。本文使用生活标准方法估算了澳大利亚的残疾成本。这种方法将残疾人的费用定义为残疾人要达到与非残疾人相似的生活水平所需的额外收入。我们使用混合面板数据模型分析了来自澳大利亚家庭，收入和劳动力动态（HILDA）调查的数据。据我们所知，这是第一项使用高质量，具有国家代表性的纵向数据集来检验澳大利亚的残疾成本的研究。方法本研究通过使用生活标准（SoL）和动态模型方法来估算澳大利亚的残疾成本。它通过使用滞后的残疾和收入状况来检验残疾和收入的动态。该研究还控制了未观察到的个人收入异质性和内生性。这项研究中的纵向规范使我们能够使用混合面板数据回归方法将残疾的短期和长期成本分开。结果我们的结果表明，残障人士需要将成年人的可支配收入增加50％（短期内），以实现与残障人士相同的生活水平。该数字根据残疾的严重程度而有很大差异，范围从无工作相关限制的人的19％到有严重限制的人的102％。此外，从长远来看，残疾的平均成本较高，占成年人可支配收入的63％。结论首先，我们的结果表明，在收入水平相同的情况下，与没有残疾人的家庭相比，有残疾人的家庭的生活水平较低。这表明贫困与残疾之间有密切的关系。但是，目前的贫困措施没有考虑到残疾问题，因此，它们未能考虑到残疾人与非残疾人之间贫困率的实质性差异。其次，这项研究中反映的估计成本确实考虑了因残疾而放弃的收入。因此，决策者应认真考虑采用经残疾调整的贫困和不平等衡量标准。第三，增加收入（例如通过政府付款）或为残疾人提供补贴服务可能会增加他们的经济满意度，导致生活水平提高。这项研究的结果可以作为评估国家残疾人保险计划（NDIS）的基准。