A Study On The Social-economic Influence Factors Of China’s Resident Health Inequality

Since China adopted the policy of reform and opening-up, the China resident health status has been improved remarkably. Meanwhile, socio-economic related health inequality has been becoming more and more seriously. There is a remarkable health disparity between urban and rural areas, in different regions and income classes. The health status of residents who are in the urban areas, developed regions and with high income is obviously higher than the health status of residents in the rural areas, less developed regions and with low income. At present, this disparity has gone beyond the acceptable range. This problem results from the income inequality and its derived social inequalities, which has become major blocking factors for china’s sustainable development. Thus, alleviating and eliminating the income inequality and its derived health inequality have important theoretical and practical significance to the maintenance of social harmony and stability, as well as to the comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development of economy. Based on this background, the dissertation applies theory of social determinants of health, comprehensively uses the micro and macro data, and combines the empirical test with theoretical analysis to discuss the Chinese inequalities in health and the influence factors. Hopefully, it will be helpful for the reform including health care, education, and pension system.First of all, having reviewed the literature, this dissertation explains the theory of social determinants of health. Based on the micro datasets covering residents of two provinces, the samples of urban and rural areas are differentiated to test the relationship between the health of residents and their socio-economic status. The results show that there is a remarkable correlation between health and socio-economic status, whether it is in urban or rural areas. There is a remarkable health gradient among the residents with different income or education level. The study also shows that gender, age, and province have a great impact on the resident health.Secondly, this dissertation adopts CGSS dataset to test the income-related health inequalities of urban-rural areas and different provinces, and uses the method of decomposition to differentiate the influence factors of health inequalities. The results of the study about urban and rural areas show that heath concentration in urban and rural areas are-0.125and-0.122, respectively; there is a serious pro-rich health inequality; income plays the most important role in causing health inequalities; besides income, in urban areas, the main factors that have a positive contribution to the health inequality include employment, age, and education; in rural areas, are the distance to the center of the town, regional variables, people over60years old. The results of the study about provinces show that there is a remarkable disparity in the income-related health inequality in each province; compared with the western and eastern, the health inequality in central provinces is more seriously; the Kuznets curve is in the shape of wave; the more serious health inequality in central provinces results from the factor contribution of income, urban-rural areas, age and education; from west to east, whether the average health status, or the health achievement combined the average status with health distribution, is increasing gradually.Thirdly, in the background of China economic reform and transformation, the dissertation dynamically examines the health disparities between urban and rural areas, the health disparities in regions and genders, as well as their variations. The results show that compared with before reform, the overall health status is improving, but not obvious; meanwhile, the health inequality characterized by the disparities in urban and rural areas, regions, genders still exists and some indicators tend to be worse. The major reasons lie in the health care inequity and some other social inequalities.Lastly, on the basis of the previous empirical test, combined with the literature review, this dissertation explores the way to achieve the health equity and the policy options. We argue that promoting and realizing the health equity do not mean to realize the absolute equalities among individuals or groups, but to fundamentally change China’s dual economic structure in urban and rural areas and some regions, to improve the distribution of incomes, through the intervention of the government’s responsibility and social justice, as well as the community’s efforts. And on this basis, social security and the infrastructure of education, health care, employment, pension and others should be provided equally to realize the social-economy equity including the medical services, educational resources, etc.