Socioeconomic Disparities in Health Care Consumption: Using the 2018-China Family Panel Studies

Enkai Guo, Huamei Zhong, Yang Gao, Jing Li and Zhaohong Wang
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Enkai Guo: College of P.E and Sports, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Huamei Zhong: School of Physical Education and Sports Science, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China
Yang Gao: College of P.E and Sports, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Jing Li: College of P.E and Sports, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Zhaohong Wang: College of P.E and Sports, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 12, 1-14

Abstract: The existing research on residents’ health care consumption mostly covers medical care consumption and seldom regards residents’ health care consumption as an independent research object. This article takes residents’ healthcare consumption as the research object and aims to explore the impact of socioeconomic status on healthcare consumption and its mechanisms. The data of this study came from the 2018-China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). The binary probit regression model and the Tobit model explored the impact mechanism of residents’ income, education, occupation, and physical activity on health care consumption decision-making and health care expenditure, respectively. The research results showed that, from the perspective of the direct influence mechanism, residents’ work income (0.029, p < 0.01) and education level (811.149, p < 0.01) had a significant positive impact on health care consumption. Residents whose occupations (−99.697, p < 0.01) tend to be more skilled and also have higher health care consumption. From the perspective of the mediating mechanism, residents’ physical exercise duration had a significant positive impact on their participation in healthcare consumption (0.005, p < 0.01) but had a weaker impact on healthcare consumption expenditure (21.678, p < 0.1). In general, socioeconomic status represented by income, education, and occupation had a significant positive impact on residents’ health care consumption. The duration of physical exercise also played an important mediating role.

Keywords: socioeconomic status; physical exercise; health care consumption; probit model; Tobit model; mediation effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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