An Empirical Analysis Based on the China Family Panel Survey (CFPS).
This article is a brief sharing of an article & data from the 7th issue of Management World in 2014.
Zhou Guangsu, Fan Gang, Shen Guangjun. Income Inequality, Social Capital and Health Level: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Chinese Family Longitudinal Survey (CFPS)[J].Management World,2014(07):12-21+51+187
Data and variable descriptions
This section describes the data and key variables used in the article study.
Data**:China Family Tracking Survey (CFPS).
Time Frame:The data of the second national survey of the 2012 CFPS were used, and the relevant variables of household social capital obtained from the 2010 CFPS survey were used for social capital. Indicator Description:
The relevant variables are shown in the table below.
One. Introduction
The introduction to the article is divided into five paragraphs.
First paragraphThis paper briefly introduces the research background of this paper, and points out that according to the Gini coefficient, China is already in a relatively unequal income distribution situation.
Second paragraphThis paper summarizes the existing literature on the impact of income distribution inequality on residents' health, and points out that the effect of income inequality on health is still not agreed in the field of academic research.
Third paragraphThis paper focuses on the uncertainty of the impact of income inequality on health in the context of China's "relational society", and points out that it is of practical significance and theoretical value to study the impact of income inequality and social capital on the health of Chinese residents.
Fourth paragraphBriefly summarize the research content, data**, and conclusions of the article.
Fifth paragraphExplain the structure of the article.
Two. Review of relevant literature
This section reviews the relevant literature and points out the potential contribution of the article.
In terms of the impact of income inequality on health status. The research data has shifted from using cross-border or cross-regional macro data to micro data, and most of the literature believes that the widening of income inequality will have a significant negative impact on people's health.
In terms of the impact of income distribution on residents' health status in China, there is no unified conclusion in the existing literature.
In terms of the impact of social capital on residents' health status, the existing literature is not rich enough and has not reached a unified conclusion, and there is a lack of research on this issue in China, and the sample data used in the existing studies are not representative of the country.
The marginal contribution of the article lies in:
1) Use CFPS national representative data;
2) the expenditure inequality indicator is used instead of the income inequality index, so as to avoid the impact of large measurement errors on the research conclusions of income data;
3) the impact of increasing the interaction between income disparity and social capital on residents' health;
and 4) analyze the mechanisms by which income inequality has a negative impact on health, and the mechanisms by which social capital mitigates this negative effect.
Three. Empirical analysis
(1) The impact of income disparity on health
The ordered probit model is built as follows:
Among them, srhicj is the self-rated health status of the ith person located in province J and county C, ginicj is the expenditure Gini coefficient of province J and county C, XICJ is the other control variable at the individual level, and PROVJ is the dummy variable of province.
The regression coefficients of the Gini coefficient were all significantly negative, indicating that the negative impact of income disparity on self-rated health was stable under various model settings, and the income disparity also significantly damaged individual memory.
Using different measures of income distribution to test robustness, the regression coefficients of the Gini coefficient and the district-county quantile expenditure ratio at the community level were significantly negative, and the regression coefficients of p90 p10 and p50 p10 were significantly negative, and the coefficients of p90 p50 were significantly positive, indicating that the income gap between high-income and low-income people had an adverse impact on personal health, and the gap between middle-income and high-income people would not cause a negative impact on health.
In order to avoid the estimation bias caused by endogeneity, that is, there may be a two-way causal relationship between health and income disparity, this paper uses a simultaneous equation model to consider both the determinants of health level and income inequality, and the results show that the impact of Gini coefficient on health is still robustly negative.
(2) The impact of social capital on health
The model is built as follows:
where SCICJ represents the social capital of individual I in District C of Province J, and the definitions of other variables are the same as those in equation (1).
The regression coefficients of self-rated health 1, self-rated health 2 and self-rated health 3 were all significantly positive, indicating that social capital had a positive effect on self-rated health, but cognitive social capital had no significant effect on memory.
Furthermore, the two components of the exchange of gift money are regressed, and the coefficients of "gift money expenditure" and "gift money income" are both significantly positive, which proves that social capital has a positive impact on self-rated health, and "gift money expenditure" has a greater effect on improving people's health.
In addition, the paper separately examines whether the respondents' membership in certain organizations has a similar effect on their physical and mental health, using self-rated health1 and memory as the dependent variables and organizational membership as the independent variables, and finds a significant positive relationship between the two.
(3) The buffering effect of social capital
This paper introduces a cross-section to study whether the impact paths of income disparity and social capital on personal health are independent. The model is built as follows:
As in the previous paper, the paper uses three different definitions of self-rated health and memory as the dependent variables, and uses the county-level Gini coefficient and family gift money to measure income disparity and social capital, respectively. The results show that the coefficient of the cross-section is significantly positive at the level of 1%, that is, social capital effectively alleviates the adverse effects of income disparity on individual health.
This paper uses different indicators of income disparity and social capital to test robustness, and the results confirm that social capital can reduce the damage of income disparity to individual health.
Furthermore, this paper divides the sample into two sub-samples, urban and rural areas, and examines the interaction between social capital and income disparity on personal health. The results show that the difference between urban and rural regression results is very significant, the impact of income disparity on the personal health of urban residents is minimal, and the effect of social capital on the impact of income disparity on personal health is also not significant.
Four. Analysis of the influencing mechanism
(1) The mechanism of the impact of income disparity on health
This paper proposes that income disparity may affect the health of Chinese residents by affecting the allocation of medical resources, and selects the working area of the largest medical point at the county level and the number of medical and health personnel as the explanatory variables for empirical analysis.
(2) The mechanism of the impact of social capital on health
1.The impact of social capital on private lending.
A series of borrowers and relatives and friends were selected as dependent variables for regression, and it was found that the coefficient of social capital was significantly positive in most cases, indicating that social capital and the borrowing of relatives and friends based on it alleviated the damage of income disparity to personal health.
2.The impact of social capital on access to health care resources and health care behavior.
A series of variables reflecting the acquisition of medical resources and health care behaviors were selected as explanatory variables for regression, and the results showed that people with abundant social capital were closer to medical points, and human relations still had a strong intervention effect on the allocation of medical resources, so that medical resources flowed to groups with more social capital.
Five. Conclusion
(1) Research conclusions
1) widening income inequality is accompanied by deterioration in health status;
2) social capital has a positive impact on health;
3) Social capital can effectively alleviate the damage of income disparity to individual health, and this effect mainly exists in rural areas;
4) The main mechanism of the widening income gap and the damage to health is to reduce the allocation of medical resources, and social capital alleviates the damage of income gap to people's health by promoting the role of private lending and transfer payments between relatives and friends, as well as its positive effect on the acquisition of medical resources and health care behavior.
(2) Policy recommendations
1) Pay attention to the negative impact of the widening income gap, and improve and improve various social security systems such as medical care and pension (especially in rural areas);
2) Pay attention to the construction of a harmonious society, alleviate social contradictions, and promote the establishment of good social relations between people;
3) Regulate the allocation mechanism of medical resources to prevent medical resources from flowing only to individuals with rich social capital, rather than to those most in need.
Income disparity