Estimating Intergenerational Health Transmission in Taiwan with Administrative Health Records

Harrison Chang, Timothy Halliday, Ming-Jen Lin () and Bhashkar Mazumder
Additional contact information
Harrison Chang: University of Toronto
Ming-Jen Lin: National Taiwan University
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: 明仁 林

No 16543, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We use population-wide administrative health records from Taiwan to estimate intergenerational persistence in health, providing the first estimates for a middle income country. We measure latent health by applying principal components analysis to a set of indicators for 13 broad ICD categories and quintiles of visits to a general practitioner. We find that the rank-rank slope in health between adult children and their parents is 0.22 which is broadly in line with results from other countries. Maternal transmission is stronger than paternal transmission and sons have higher persistence than daughters. Persistence is also higher at the upper tail of the parent health distribution. Persistence is lower when using inpatient data or when using total medical expenses and may overstate mobility. Health transmission is almost entirely unrelated to household income levels in Taiwan. We also find that that there are small geographic differences in health persistence across townships and that these are modestly correlated with area level income and doctor availability. Finally, by looking at persistence within health conditions that vary in their genetic component, we find little evidence that health persistence is driven by genetic factors.

Keywords: administrative data; health; intergenerational mobility; genetics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2023-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Journal of Public Economics, 2024, 238, 105194

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Related works:
Journal Article: Estimating intergenerational health transmission in Taiwan with administrative health records (2024)
Working Paper: Estimating Intergenerational Health Transmission in Taiwan with Administrative Health Records (2023)
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