Demographic and Socio-Economic Profile of Severely Ill or Disabled Children in South Africa

Nwabisa Mona, University of KwaZulu Natal (Howard)

This study describes the accessibility to social welfare services such as health, education and social services, in the comparison between two subset populations. The data was extracted from NIDS Wave four, the children and two weighted questionnaires, were merged using the unique household identifier. The stratified sampling was used, this consisted of strata one children with severe illness or disability and strata two children with no form of disability. The Pearson Chi2 was used to test for significance and the analysis was conducted using STATA. There was a high prevalence rate of disability and severe illnesses in children under seventeen years and a statistical significance was found between health, demographics and education indicators in association with the epidemics. The findings of this study suggest that the implementation of inclusive policies is needed in social welfare systems to achieve inclusive development and disability mainstreaming in alignment with SDGs and Africa agenda.