Child Disability and Siblings’ Healthcare Expenditures in a Context of Child Fostering

Abstract

Many studies have assessed the impact of disability on healthcare expenditure on the disabled child, but practically none has considered the externalities of a child’s disability in terms of healthcare expenditure on siblings. This study, conducted in Cameroon, therefore seeks to measure the impact of a child’s disability on healthcare expenditure on all of the children in the household. The assessment is based on data from the 2011 Demographic and Health and Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (DHS-MICS) in Cameroon and on a two-part model. It led to the result that disability significantly increases average monthly healthcare expenditure on a child but has no impact on healthcare expenditure on the other children in the household. For foster children, being disabled increases the monthly health expenditure by XAF 684. Whereas disability of biological children of the head of household is a source of health spending XAF 138 lower. An explanation for this is that disabled children who remain living with their biological families tend to be less severely disabled