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Economic reforms and health insurance in China

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  • Du, Juan

Abstract

During the 1990s, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and collective enterprises continually decreased coverage of public health insurance to their employees. This paper investigates this changing pattern of health insurance coverage in China using panel data from the China Nutrition and Health Survey (1991-2000). It is the first attempt in this literature that tries to identify precisely the effects of specific policies and reforms on health insurance coverage in the transitional period of China. The fixed effects linear model clustering at the province level is used for estimation, and results are compared to alternative models, including pooled OLS, random effects GLS model and fixed effects logit model. Strong empirical evidence is found that unemployment as a side effect of the Open Door Policy, and the deregulation of SOE and collective enterprises were the main causes for the decreasing trend. For example, urban areas that were highly affected by the Open Door Policy were associated with 17 percentage points decrease in the insurance coverage. Moreover, I found evidence that the gaps between SOE and non-SOE employees, collective and non-collective employees, urban and rural employees have considerably decreased during the ten years.

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  • Du, Juan, 2009. "Economic reforms and health insurance in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 387-395, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:69:y:2009:i:3:p:387-395
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    Cited by:

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    2. Liu, Jun-Qiang, 2011. "Dynamics of social health insurance development: Examining the determinants of Chinese basic health insurance coverage with panel data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(4), pages 550-558, August.
    3. Yu, Hao, 2015. "Universal health insurance coverage for 1.3 billion people: What accounts for China's success?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(9), pages 1145-1152.
    4. Juergen Jung & Jialu Liu Streeter, 2015. "Does health insurance decrease health expenditure risk in developing countries? The case of China," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(2), pages 361-384, October.
    5. Xu Cui & Jing Jian Xiao & Jingtao Yi, 2019. "Employment Type, Residential Status And Consumer Financial Capability: Evidence From China Household Finance Survey," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(01), pages 57-81, March.
    6. Carine Milcent & Feng Jin, 2010. "Decrease in the healthcare demand in rural China: A side effect of the industrialization process?," PSE Working Papers halshs-00564848, HAL.
    7. Linda G. Martin & Qiushi Feng & Robert F. Schoeni & Yi Zeng, 2014. "Trends in Functional and Activity Limitations among Chinese Oldest-Old, 1998 to 2008," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 40(3), pages 475-495, September.
    8. Yinzi Jin & Zhiyuan Hou & Donglan Zhang, 2016. "Determinants of Health Insurance Coverage among People Aged 45 and over in China: Who Buys Public, Private and Multiple Insurance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-15, August.

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