fyi.
----- Original Message -----
From: David Webb
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 4:07 PM
Subject: [OZAdvocacy] What are the costs of exclusion?
Hi all,
We hear a lot about the costs of inclusion of people with disabilities - pensions, subsidies, services etc - but hardly anything about the costs of exclusion.
I stumbled on the following report that estimates the costs of exclusion as between 3-5% of GDP:
http://sebastian.buckup.de/4.html
Now admittedly, this study looks at ten low to middle income countries but the percentage is probably higher for countries like Australia.
The current GDP of Australia is just on 1 trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000) so using the (probably low) 3-5% estimate of this report gives the cost of exclusion in Australia as between $30 and $50 billion - per annum!!! That's right, it costs the Australian economy between 30 and 50 billion dollars every year to sustain the exclusion and discrimination that is the day to day reality of many people with disabilities.
I've often felt it would be handy to have a dollar value of the costs of exclusion - politicians love numbers - so I'm going to use these numbers as a conservative approximate until someone comes up with more accurate data for Australia. Can I encourage you to also.
Now imagine if $30-50 billion was available - every year - to INCLUDE people with disabilities in the Australian economy and community!
Cheers - David
__,_._,___
________________End of message________________
This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies).
Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask]
Archives and tools are located at:
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page.
|