Disability

Summary of the press release published by the INE regarding disability

The total number of people living in Español homes who claim to have some form of disability is 3,847,900, in other words 8.5% of the population, according to the provisional results of the 2008 Disability, Personal Autonomy and Situations of Dependency Survey (EDAD).

By gender, over 2.3 million women claim to have a disability compared to 1.55 million men. The disability indices among women are higher than those among men in age groups over 45 years. In the age groups under 44 years, the male indices are higher than those for women.

The disability index has declined 0.5 points since 1999

If the 2008 EDAD is compared to the previous study on disability performed by the Español National Statistics Institute (INE) in 1999, it can be seen that the actual number of disabled people has risen by 320,000. However, given that the rise in disabled people has been less than the total population increase, the disability index has registered a reduction from 9.0% in 1999 to 8.5% in 2008.

At least one disabled person lives in 1 out of every 5 homes

There is a total of 3.3 million Español homes with at least one person who claims to have a disability, in other words, 20.0% of all Español homes. In 608,000 of these homes, the disabled person lives alone.

The most frequent situation is a home with two members where one of them lives with some form of disability.

Mobility problems are the most common form of disability

The principal disability groups in people aged six years or more and living in private homes are those of mobility (which affects 6.0% of the population), domestic life (4.9%) and self care (4.3%). In fact, more than half of people with disability suffer limitations to their activity as a result of one of these three problems. As regards the group of people aged 80 years or more, these three main disability groups affect 7 out of every 10 people with disability.

Within the mobility group, restrictions in terms of being unable to leave the home affect 2 out of every 3 people with mobility problems.

By gender, women present higher indices than men in all forms of disability, and mobility is the main cause of activity restriction for both women and men.