Staff characteristics and the exclusion of persons with disabilities: evidence from the microfinance industry in Uganda

Abstract

This study uses survey data from the microfinance industry in Uganda to investigate whether there are differences among industry staff members in beliefs and views regarding persons with disabilities. For several of the questions, various staff sub-groups respond significantly differently. A recurring result is that staff members who have a relative with disabilities often express views that differ from the views of other staff members. Moreover, we find significant differences related to the age of the staff members. For instance, younger staff members are more positive and optimistic regarding the potential to reach more clients with disabilities. The employment position of the individual staff member also appears to be relevant: credit officers are relatively more likely (than other staff types) to indicate that discrimination could be a problem in the microfinance industry. Interestingly, we do not observe any differences in views and beliefs that are related to staff member gender.

Keywords:

• microfinance
• disability
• staff characteristics
• discrimination
• exclusion
• Uganda

Notes

1. The authors are aware of the ongoing debate regarding whether poor persons benefit from small loans. In this article, we have settled upon the positive view and assume that access to microcredit is positive for poor persons with disabilities on average.

2. See http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=18.

3. Labie et al. (2010) examine the data from the same survey as our study. However, Labie et al. (2010) use the survey evidence to construct an agency model of a non-profit MFI and a discriminatory credit officer, and do not empirically analyse differences related to staff characteristics. Thus, the research questions and the contributions are substantially different between the two studies.

4. One of the authors of this paper served in Uganda as a consultant for this project.

5. Non-tabulated results indicate that the spread is large among the credit officers. In fact, 27% of the credit officers totally disagree with the statement that his or her branch never discriminates against persons because of their disabilities.