Health insurance and self-employment transitions in Vietnam

Nga Le (), Wim Groot (), Sonila M. Tomini () and Florian Tomini ()
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Nga Le: UNU-MERIT
Wim Groot: UNU-MERIT, TIER and CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University
Sonila M. Tomini: UNU-MERIT
Florian Tomini: Centre for Primary Care and Public Health Queen Mary University, London,

No 2019-008, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: Health insurance can have important effects on self-employment and self- employment transitions. However, there is a literature gap on the relationship between health insurance and self-employment in low and middle income countries, especially in the context of rapid expansion of health insurance in these countries. This paper examines this relationship in Vietnam with a focus on the comparison between the voluntary scheme for the informal sector (mostly self-employed workers) and the compulsory insurance for the formal sector (mostly wage workers). We employ a Probit model with selection on a panel from the Vietnamese Household Living Standards Surveys 2010-2014 to investigate the association between health insurance and self-employment entry and exit. We show that those with compulsory health insurance in Vietnam, the formal workers, are 10 percentage points less likely to enter self-employment compared to those having voluntary insurance. Regarding self-employment exit, people with compulsory insurance are more likely to exit self-employment compared to those covered by voluntary insurance. However, the effect size is relatively small.

Keywords: health insurance; self-employment; Vietnam; self-employment entry; self-employment exit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I13 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-03-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-hea, nep-ias, nep-iue, nep-sea and nep-tra
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2019008

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