An Empirical Study on Health Welfare and Health Inequality in China
Read
DownLoad |
| Title | An Empirical Study on Health Welfare and Health Inequality in China
|
| Author | Wang Hongliang, Liu Zhibiao and Buhong Zheng |
| Organization | Nanjing Audit University; Nanjing University; University of Colorado |
| Email | whongliang@nju.edu.cn；zbliu@nju.edu.cn;buhong.zheng@ucdenver.edu |
| Key Words | Health Inequality; Ordinal Data; Income Health Matrix |
| Abstract | Facing limitations of more conventional methods such as Gini coefficients when applied to studies of health inequalities, this paper proposes a new empirical approach in which ordinal data are used to study health welfare and health equalities in China. These ordinal data are contained in the China Health and Nutrition Survey and are used to demonstrate variations in health welfare and health inequalities experienced by Chinese Citizens from 1997 to 2009. A critical finding of this paper is that the overall health in China has been deteriorated and the health inequalities have been enlarged. The likely reasons are that the number of elderlies has increased disproportionately faster than the rest of the population in this aging society, and the income inequalities and relative poverty in China have been exacerbated. However, the hope for improvement in the future lies in increase and betterment of China’s fledgling health insurance market and greater achievement of China’s education system. |
| Serial Number | wp483 |
| Time | 2013-06-26 |
|