How Poverty, Residence Status and Health Insurance Predict Unmet Healthcare Needs among Chinese Elders?

Lili Wu, Chunyin Wang and Jiayun Kou

Applied Economics and Finance, 2021, vol. 8, issue 6, 10-20

Abstract: This study focuses on the variability in unmet healthcare needs among vulnerable Chinese elders and the degree to which these unmet needs are associated with socioeconomic disadvantages. We use the 2013 wave of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) and a multinomial logistic model to investigate how poverty, residence status and particular health insurance schemes influence unmet healthcare needs independently and in combination. Our results show that poverty and rural residence are strong predictors of unmet healthcare needs due to financial and non-financial constraints, respectively. Although health insurance can reduce financial barriers, its influence varies with different insurance schemes, thus generating unequal healthcare access among heterogeneous vulnerable subgroups of elders and putting poor rural migrants at the highest risk for unmet healthcare needs. Our findings direct attention to the differences in resources available to various subgroups of elders and the importance of social stratification in predicting unmet health care needs.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://redfame.com/journal/index.php/aef/article/download/5369/5598 (application/pdf)
https://redfame.com/journal/index.php/aef/article/view/5369 (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:rfa:aefjnl:v:8:y:2021:i:6:p:10-20

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Applied Economics and Finance from Redfame publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Redfame publishing ().