IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwwpp/dp434.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Relationship between Pet Ownership and Health Outcomes: German Longitudinal Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Bruce Headey
  • Markus M. Grabka

Abstract

Previous cross-sectional and intervention studies have suggested that pet owners may enjoy better physical and mental health than non-owners. This paper presents longitudinal evidence from a major national representative longitudinal survey: the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Because the data are longitudinal, it is possible to assess the impact on health outcomes (measured by number of doctor visits) of longer term pet ownership, and also of gaining and losing a pet. An unexpected finding was that all health benefits appear to accrue to homeowners only. The main result, then, is that homeowners who have owned a pet for five years or more make significantly fewer doctor visits than non pet owners. However, losing a pet appears to impose immediate health costs. The results hold after controlling for other variables associated with use of health services, and also for health status at baseline. They still hold when a proxy for unobserved heterogeneity is included in equations.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruce Headey & Markus M. Grabka, 2004. "The Relationship between Pet Ownership and Health Outcomes: German Longitudinal Evidence," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 434, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp434
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.42336.de/dp434.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ell, Kathleen, 1996. "Social networks, social support and coping with serious illness: The family connection," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 173-183, January.
    2. Rainer Winkelmann, 2004. "Health care reform and the number of doctor visits-an econometric analysis," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 455-472.
    3. Elke Holst & Dean R. Lillard & Thomas A. DiPrete, 2001. "Proceedings of the 2000 Fourth International Conference of German Socio-Economic Panel Study Users (GSOEP 2000): Editorial Introduction," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 70(1), pages 5-6.
    4. Johannes Schwarze & Hanfried H. Andersen & Silke Anger, 2000. "Self-Rated Health and Changes in Self-Rated Health as Predictors of Mortality: First Evidence from German Panel Data," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 203, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Bruce Headey, 1999. "Health Benefits and Health Cost Savings Due to Pets: Preliminary Estimates from an Australian National Survey," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 233-243, June.
    6. SOEP Group, 2001. "The German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) after More than 15 Years: Overview," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 70(1), pages 7-14.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bruce Headey & Markus Grabka, 2007. "Pets and Human Health in Germany and Australia: National Longitudinal Results," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 80(2), pages 297-311, January.
    2. Sarah Holly & Alwine Mohnen, 2012. "Impact of Working Hours on Work-Life Balance," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 465, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    3. Joachim R. Frick & Markus M. Grabka & Olaf Groh-Samberg, 2007. "Economic Gains from Publicly Provided Education in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 28, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    4. Constant, Amelie F. & Gataullina, Liliya & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2009. "Ethnosizing immigrants," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 274-287, March.
    5. Robert Orlowski & Regina T. Riphahn, 2008. "The East German Wage Structure after Transition," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 148, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    6. Jennifer Hunt, 2004. "Are migrants more skilled than non-migrants? Repeat, return, and same-employer migrants," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 37(4), pages 830-849, November.
    7. Amelie Constant & Klaus Zimmermann, 2011. "Circular and Repeat Migration: Counts of Exits and Years Away from the Host Country," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 30(4), pages 495-515, August.
    8. Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola, 2009. "On preferences for being self-employed," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 162-171, August.
    9. Monika Sander, 2008. "Changes in Immigrants' Body Mass Index with Their Duration of Residence in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 122, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    10. Elke Holst, 2006. "Women in Managerial Positions in Europe: Focus on Germany," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 17(2), pages 122-142.
    11. Elke Holst & Mechthild Schrooten, 2006. "Migration and Money - What Determines Remittances?: Evidence from Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 566, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Bohringer, Christoph & Boeters, Stefan & Feil, Michael, 2005. "Taxation and unemployment: an applied general equilibrium approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 81-108, January.
    13. A. Zaiceva, 2007. "East-West migration and gender: Is there a "double disadvantage" vis- -vis stayers?," Working Papers 608, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    14. Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln, 2008. "The Response of Household Saving to the Large Shock of German Reunification," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2008-21, Center for Retirement Research, revised Dec 2008.
    15. Markus Jochmann & Roberto León‐González, 2004. "Estimating the demand for health care with panel data: a semiparametric Bayesian approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(10), pages 1003-1014, October.
    16. Amelie Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2007. "Circular Migration: Counts of Exits and Years away from the Host Country," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 718, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Monika Sander, 2008. "Is There Migration-Related Inequity in Access to or in the Utilisation of Health Care in Germany?," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 147, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    18. Karsten Hank, 2002. "Regional Social Contexts and Individual Fertility Decisions: A Multilevel Analysis of First and Second Births in Western Germany," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 18(3), pages 281-299, September.
    19. Bremus, Franziska M. & Kuzin, Vladimir, 2014. "Unemployment and portfolio choice: Does persistence matter?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 99-113.
    20. Hendrik Jurges, 2008. "Self-assessed health, reference levels and mortality," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(5), pages 569-582.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pets; Health; Homeowners; Longitudinal; Poisson regression;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp434. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.