Abstract:
Recent research reports that inequalities in health are not only the result of individual behaviour but also of environmental influences. This study analyses on household-level, whether such an environmental influence on self-rated health can be found. Using data of the German Socio-Economic Panel, three latent dimensions of environment have been constructed: „quality of life“, „social environment“, and „infrastructure“. Via multilevel regressions it could be shown, that, under control of individual socio–demographic characteristics, a household’s level of quality of life as well as its infrastructure do have a significant effect on its members’ self-rated health, whereas no significant effect could be found for a household’s social environment.