 ON MEASURING AND EXPLAINING SOCIOECONOMIC POLARIZATION IN HEALTH WITH AN APPLICATION TO FRENCH DATAReview of Income and Wealth, 2010, vol. 56, issue 1, 141-170 Abstract: This paper proposes two original measures of socioeconomic polarization, in order to quantify phenomena that are not always taken into account by social inequality measures. Our approach is inspired by the literature on bivariate inequality (the concentration index) and univariate polarization. Like the concentration index, our social polarization measures can be easily computed thanks to a “convenient” regression and decomposed into their determinants. Moreover changes in polarization can also be decomposed into their causes. The paper also provides an empirical illustration of our methods for the probability of reporting excellent or very good health, using cross‐sectional data on French women. The findings suggest that after 65 years of age, social polarization in this probability decreases whereas social inequality remains stable. Consequently social polarization conveys additional information to that contained in the concentration index. Date: 2010 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:revinw:v:56:y:2010:i:1:p:141-170 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Review of Income and Wealth is currently edited by Conchita D'Ambrosio and Robert J. Hill More articles in Review of Income and Wealth from International Association for Research in Income and Wealth Contact information at EDIRC. |
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