Trends and Changes in Socio-Economic Inequality in Self-Rated Health among Migrants and Non-Migrants: Repeated Cross-Sectional Analysis of National Survey Data in Germany, 1995–2017

Elisa Wulkotte and Kayvan Bozorgmehr
Additional contact information
Elisa Wulkotte: Department of Population Medicine and Health Services Research, School of Public Health, Bielefeld University, P.O. Box 10 01 31, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany
Kayvan Bozorgmehr: Department of Population Medicine and Health Services Research, School of Public Health, Bielefeld University, P.O. Box 10 01 31, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany

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

Abstract: Socio-economic inequalities in health may change over time, and monitoring such change is relevant to inform adequate policy responses. We aimed to quantify socio-economic inequalities in health among people with direct, indirect and without migration background in Germany and to assess temporal trends and changes between 1995 and 2017. Using nationally representative survey data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we quantified absolute and relative socio-economic inequalities in self-reported general health by calculating the slope (SII) and relative index of inequality (RII) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) among each group and year (1995–2017) in a repeated cross-sectional design. Temporal trends were assessed using a GLM regression over the SII and RII, respectively. The total sample size comprised 492,489 observations, including 108,842 (22.23%) among people with migration background. About 31% of the population with and 15% of the population without migration background had a low socio-economic status. Socio-economic inequalities in health persisted in the group with migration background (1995 to 2017), while inequalities in the non-migrant population increased (SII: β T r e n d = 0.04, p < 0.01) and were on a higher level. The highest socio-economic inequalities in health were found among those with direct migration background ( β S I I , m i n = −0.23, p < 0.01; β S I I , m a x = −0.33, p < 0.01). The results show that the magnitude and temporal dynamics of inequalities differ among populations with direct, indirect and without migration background. Monitoring systems can capture and investigate these inequalities if migrant populations are adequately integrated into the respective systems.

Keywords: inequality; equity; migration; social disparity; trends; slope index of inequality; relative index of inequality; socio-economic status; refugees; social epidemiology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8304/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8304/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:14:p:8304-:d:857739

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().