Gender Gaps in Access to Health Care in Rural China

It has been established in the literature on intrahousehold inequality in low-income economies that the family allocates more resources to male members, who have higher market values than women do. Using recent data collected on about 8,400 people in eight Chinese provinces, this article finds that, when other factors are controlled for, prime-age women are favored in accessing health care in their childbearing and maternal periods. Women's curative expenditures are more sensitive to family income, but men's expenditures are more sensitive to parameters that are related to the time involved in getting treatment. This article interprets these findings as evidence for the family's division of labor to solve its dynamic consumption-production problem. However, consistent with the literature, this article finds that girls are less likely to get treatment than boys and that their curative expenditures are sensitive to parents' education, family income and wealth, and village sanitary conditions.