Adeline Amélie, Delattre Eric
THEMA, University of Cergy-Pontoise, 33 Bd. du Port, Cergy, 95000, France.
Health Econ Rev. 2017 Aug 14;7(1):27. doi: 10.1186/s13561-017-0163-5.
This paper examines the association between income, income inequalities and health inequalities in Europe. The contribution of this paper is to study different hypotheses linking self-perceived health status and income, allowing for the identification of different mechanisms in income-related health inequalities. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (15 countries), we take the advantage of the cross-sectional and longitudinal nature of this rich database to make robust results. The analyses (coefficient estimates as well as average marginal effects) strongly support two hypotheses by showing that (i) income has a positive and concave effect on health (Absolute Income Hypothesis); (ii) income inequalities in a country affect all members in a society (strong version of the Income Inequality Hypothesis). However, our study suggests that, when considering the position of the individual in the income distribution, as well as the interaction between income inequalities and these rankings, one cannot identify individuals the most affected by income inequalities (which should be the least well-off in a society according to the weak version of the Income Inequality Hypothesis). Finally, the robustness of this study is emphasized when implementing a generalized ordered probit to consider the subjective nature of the self-perceived health status to avoid the traps encountered in previous studies.
本文考察了欧洲收入、收入不平等与健康不平等之间的关联。本文的贡献在于研究将自我感知健康状况与收入联系起来的不同假设，从而能够识别收入相关健康不平等中的不同机制。利用欧洲健康、老龄化与退休调查（15个国家）的数据，我们借助这个丰富数据库的横截面和纵向性质得出了可靠的结果。分析（系数估计以及平均边际效应）有力地支持了两个假设，即：（i）收入对健康具有正向且凹形的影响（绝对收入假设）；（ii）一个国家的收入不平等会影响社会中的所有成员（收入不平等假设的强版本）。然而，我们的研究表明，在考虑个人在收入分配中的位置以及收入不平等与这些排名之间的相互作用时，无法确定受收入不平等影响最大的个体（根据收入不平等假设的弱版本，这些个体在社会中应是最贫困的）。最后，在实施广义有序概率单位模型以考虑自我感知健康状况的主观性从而避免先前研究中遇到的陷阱时，强调了本研究的稳健性。
