Gift Giving And The Demand For Health Insurance

There is increasing interest in the issue of informal insurance. Using data base of CHNS, this paper studies the determinants of demand for health insurance in China, with the main focus on the effect of gift giving. Evidence from our paper suggests that gift giving has a strong negative effect on the demand of health insurance. However, the negative effect is weakened through the growing education level of the head of the family. Besides, we find that higher level of marketization and urbanization will increase the participation rate of health insurance significantly, which is useful for the market strategy of assurance Company. Finally, if the head of the family is female, the probability of purchase health insurance will be much lower.