An Economic Analysis of Household Income Inequality and BMI in China

Jianfeng Yao and Fafanyo Asiseh
Additional contact information
Jianfeng Yao and Fafanyo Asiseh: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Journal of Economic Development, 2019, vol. 44, issue 1, 23-37

Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between household income inequality at county level and Body Mass Index (BMI). The hypotheses associating BMI with income inequality are tested. Unlike most literature that found positive linear relationship between prevalence of overweight or obesity and household income inequality, by using a longitudinal data from China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) between 1991 and 2011, we find that BMI will first decrease with household income inequality and then increase at an increasing rate, which suggests that high inequality may speed up the possibility of being overweight and obese. Policy measures on controlling obesity should be directed towards reducing inequality.

Keywords: Inequality; BMI; China; Household Income; Health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I14 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://jed.or.kr/full-text/44-1/2.pdf (application/pdf)

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:jed:journl:v:44:y:2019:i:1:p:23-37

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Development is currently edited by Sung Y. Park

More articles in Journal of Economic Development from Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sung Y. Park ().