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Inequality and bi-polarization in socioeconomic status and health: Ordinal approaches

Author

Listed:
  • Bénédicte Apouey

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Jacques Silber

    (Department of Economics [Israël] - Bar-Ilan University [Israël], CEPS/INSTEAD - Centre d'Etudes de Populations, de Pauvreté et de Politiques Socio-Economiques / International Networks for Studies in Technology, Environment, Alternatives, Development - Centre d'Etudes de Populations, de Pauvreté et de Politiques Socio-Economiques / International Networks for Studies in Technology, Environment, Alternatives, Development)

Abstract

Traditional indices of bi-dimensional inequality and polarization were developed for cardinal variables and cannot be used to quantify dispersion in ordinal measures of socioeconomic status and health. This paper develops two approaches to the measurement of inequality and bi-polarization using only ordinal information. An empirical illustration is given for 24 European Union countries in 2004-2006 and 2011. Results suggest that inequalities and bi-polarization in income and health are especially large in Estonia and Portugal, and that inequalities have significantly increased in recent years in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands, whereas bi-polarization significantly decreased in France, Portugal, and the UK.

Suggested Citation

  • Bénédicte Apouey & Jacques Silber, 2013. "Inequality and bi-polarization in socioeconomic status and health: Ordinal approaches," PSE Working Papers halshs-00850014, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-00850014
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00850014v1
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bénédicte H. Apouey, 2010. "On Measuring And Explaining Socioeconomic Polarization In Health With An Application To French Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 141-170, March.
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    11. Joseph Deutsch & Jacques Silber & Gaston Yalonetzky, 2014. "On Bi-Polarization and The Middle Class in Latin America: A Look At the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S2), pages 332-352, November.
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. #HEJC papers for September 2013
      by academichealtheconomists in The Academic Health Economists' Blog on 2013-09-01 04:01:38

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    Cited by:

    1. Frank A Cowell & Martyna Kobus & Radoslaw Kurek, 2017. "Welfare and Inequality Comparisons for Uni- and Multi-dimensional Distributions of Ordinal Data," STICERD - Public Economics Programme Discussion Papers 31, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    2. Marta Pascual & David Cantarero & Paloma Lanza, 2018. "Health polarization and inequalities across Europe: an empirical approach," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(8), pages 1039-1051, November.
    3. Bénédicte Apouey & Pierre-Yves Geoffard, 2015. "Le gradient et la transmission intergénérationnelle de la santé pendant l'enfance," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 475(1), pages 113-133.
    4. SILBER, Jacques & XU, Yongsheng, 2016. "The Health Equivalent Adjusted Level (HEAL): Taking an Ordinal Approach to the Measurement of a Society's Health Achievements," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-31, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    5. Maria Livia ŞTEFĂNESCU, 2015. "Analyzing the health status of the population using ordinal data," Computational Methods in Social Sciences (CMSS), "Nicolae Titulescu" University of Bucharest, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 3(1), pages 18-24, June.
    6. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01155572 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Klein, Ingo & Mangold, Benedikt, 2015. "Cumulative Paired 𝜙-Entropy," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 07/2015, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    8. Martyna Kobus & Radosław Kurek, 2019. "Multidimensional polarization for ordinal data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(3), pages 301-317, September.
    9. Valérie Bérenger & Jacques Silber, 2022. "On the Measurement of Happiness and of its Inequality," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 861-902, March.
    10. Kobus, Martyna & Kurek, Radosław, 2023. "Measuring inequality in the joint distribution of socioeconomic status and health," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Self-assessed health; Inequality; Bi-polarization; Ordinal variables;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

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