IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1346.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Evolution of Income-Related Health Inequalities in Switzerland over Time

Author

Listed:
  • Leu, Robert E.

    (University of Bern)

  • Schellhorn, Martin

    (University of Kiel)

Abstract

This paper presents new evidence on income-related health inequality and its development over time in Switzerland. We employ the methods lined out in van Doorslaer and Jones (2003) and van Doorslaer and Koolman (2004) measuring health using an interval regression approach to compute concentration indices and decomposing inequality into its determining factors. Nationally representative survey data for 1982, 1992, 1997 and 2002 are used to carry out the analysis. Looking at each of the four years separately the results indicates the usual positive relationship between income and health, but the distribution is among the least unequal in Europe. No clear trend emerges in the evolution of the inequality indices over the two decades. Inequality is somewhat lower in 1982 and 1992 as compared to 1997 and 2002 but the differences are not significant. The most important contributors to health inequality are income, education and activity status, in particular retirement. Regional differences including the widely varying health care supply, by contrast, do not exert any systematic influence.

Suggested Citation

  • Leu, Robert E. & Schellhorn, Martin, 2004. "The Evolution of Income-Related Health Inequalities in Switzerland over Time," IZA Discussion Papers 1346, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1346
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1346.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Schellhorn, 2001. "The effect of variable health insurance deductibles on the demand for physician visits," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(5), pages 441-456, July.
    2. van Doorslaer, Eddy & Gerdtham, Ulf-G., 2003. "Does inequality in self-assessed health predict inequality in survival by income? Evidence from Swedish data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(9), pages 1621-1629, November.
    3. Schokkaert, Erik & Van de Voorde, Carine, 2004. "Risk selection and the specification of the conventional risk adjustment formula," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1237-1259, November.
    4. Leu, Robert E. & Schellhorn, Martin, 2004. "The Evolution of Income-Related Inequalities in Health Care Utilization in Switzerland over Time," IZA Discussion Papers 1316, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Andrew M. Jones, 2012. "health econometrics," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics,, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Robert E. Leu & Martin Schellhorn, 2004. "The evolution of income-related health inequalities in Switzerland over time," Diskussionsschriften dp0414, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    7. Doorslaer, Eddy van & Jones, Andrew M., 2003. "Inequalities in self-reported health: validation of a new approach to measurement," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 61-87, January.
    8. Robert E. Leu & Martin Schellhorn, 2004. "The evolution of income-related inequalities in health care utilization in Switzerland over time," Diskussionsschriften dp0413, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    9. Eddy van Doorslaer & Xander Koolman & Andrew M. Jones, 2004. "Explaining income‐related inequalities in doctor utilisation in Europe," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(7), pages 629-647, July.
    10. Kakwani, Nanak & Wagstaff, Adam & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 1997. "Socioeconomic inequalities in health: Measurement, computation, and statistical inference," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 87-103, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Heckley, Gawain A. & Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Kjellsson, Gustav, 2014. "A New Approach to Decomposition of a Bivariate Rank Dependent Index Using Recentered Influence Function Regression," Working Papers 2014:36, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 01 Apr 2015.
    2. Ana I. Balsa & Máximo Rossi & Patricia Triunfo, 2011. "Horizontal Inequity in Access to Health Care in Four South American Cities," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, June.
    3. Mosca, Ilaria, 2006. "Is decentralisation the real solution?: A three country study," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 113-120, June.
    4. Bilger, Marcel, 2008. "Progressivity, horizontal inequality and reranking caused by health system financing: A decomposition analysis for Switzerland," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1582-1593, December.
    5. Gaillard, Gabrielle, 2007. "Equity and Health," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 8(4), pages 67-80.
    6. Michael Gerfin & Martin Schellhorn, 2006. "Nonparametric bounds on the effect of deductibles in health care insurance on doctor visits – Swiss evidence," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(9), pages 1011-1020, September.
    7. Gerdtham, Ulf-G & Lundborg, Petter & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Nystedt, Paul, 2012. "Do Socioeconomic Factors Really Explain Income-Related Inequalities in Health? Applying a Twin Design to Standard Decomposition Analysis," Working Papers 2012:21, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    8. Paul, Pavitra & Valtonen, Hannu, 2015. "Health inequality in the Russian Federation: An examination of the changes in concentration and achievement indices from 1994 to 2013," MPRA Paper 70150, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 05 Feb 2016.
    9. Heckley, Gawain & Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Kjellsson, Gustav, 2016. "A general method for decomposing the causes of socioeconomic inequality in health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 89-106.
    10. Robert E. Leu & Martin Schellhorn, 2004. "The evolution of income-related health inequalities in Switzerland over time," Diskussionsschriften dp0414, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.

    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. Robert E. Leu & Martin Schellhorn, 2004. "The evolution of income-related health inequalities in Switzerland over time," Diskussionsschriften dp0414, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    2. Eddy van Doorslaer & Xander Koolman, 2004. "Explaining the differences in income‐related health inequalities across European countries," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(7), pages 609-628, July.
    3. David Cantarero & Marta Pascual & Jose Maria Sarabia, 2004. "Can income inequality contribute to understand inequalities in health? An empirical approach based on the European Community Household Panel," ERSA conference papers ersa04p230, European Regional Science Association.
    4. H. Eme Ichoku & William Fonta & Michael Thiede, 2011. "Socioeconomic gradients in self-rated health: a developing country case study of Enugu State, Nigeria," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 179-202, August.
    5. Ana I. Balsa & Máximo Rossi & Patricia Triunfo, 2011. "Horizontal Inequity in Access to Health Care in Four South American Cities," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, June.
    6. Gaillard, Gabrielle, 2007. "Equity and Health," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 8(4), pages 67-80.
    7. FLEURBAEY, Marc & SCHOKKAERT, Erik, 2011. "Equity in health and health care," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2011026, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    8. David Cantarero & Marta Pascual, 2005. "Regional Differences In Health In Spain - An Empirical Analysis," ERSA conference papers ersa05p551, European Regional Science Association.
    9. Michael Gerfin & Martin Schellhorn, 2006. "Nonparametric bounds on the effect of deductibles in health care insurance on doctor visits – Swiss evidence," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(9), pages 1011-1020, September.
    10. Fleurbaey, Marc & Schokkaert, Erik, 2009. "Unfair inequalities in health and health care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 73-90, January.
    11. Teresa Bago d'Uva & Eddy Van Doorslaer & Maarten Lindeboom & Owen O'Donnell, 2008. "Does reporting heterogeneity bias the measurement of health disparities?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(3), pages 351-375, March.
    12. Hudson, Eibhlin & Nolan, Anne, 2015. "Public healthcare eligibility and the utilisation of GP services by older people in Ireland," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 6(C), pages 24-43.
    13. González Álvarez, M Luz & Barranquero, Antonio Clavero, 2009. "Inequalities in health care utilization in Spain due to double insurance coverage: An Oaxaca-Ransom decomposition," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 793-801, September.
    14. Philip M. Clarke & Chris Ryan, 2006. "Self‐reported health: reliability and consequences for health inequality measurement," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(6), pages 645-652, June.
    15. Yuejen ZHAO, 2013. "Decomposition of Concentration Index using Generalised Linear Model: Analysis of Socio-Economic Determinants of Health Inequality in the Northern Territory of Australia," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 13(1), pages 145-154.
    16. E. Xie, 2011. "Income-related inequalities of health and health care utilization," Frontiers of Economics in China, Springer;Higher Education Press, vol. 6(1), pages 131-156, March.
    17. Mª Luz González Alvarez & Antonio Clavero Barranquero, 2008. "An analysis of income-related inequalities in the health care use by dynamic models," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 186(3), pages 9-42, October.
    18. Kjellsson, Gustav, 2014. "Extending Decomposition Analysis to Account for Socioeconomic Background: Income-Related Smoking Inequality among Swedish Women," Working Papers 2014:29, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    19. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:9:y:2005:i:9:p:1-17 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Hai Zhong, 2010. "On decomposing the inequality and inequity change in health care utilization: change in means, or change in the distributions?," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 369-386, December.
    21. Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2009. "Measurement of Health, the Sensitivity of the Concentration Index, and Reporting Heterogeneity," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 211, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inequalities in health; concentration index; decomposition analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

    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:iza:izadps:dp1346. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.