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Socio-Economic Status, Health Shocks, Life Satisfaction and Mortality: Evidence from an Increasing Mixed Proportional Hazard Model

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Author Info
Frijters, Paul (RSSS, Australian National University)
Haisken-DeNew, John (RWI Essen and IZA Bonn)
Shields, Michael A. () (University of Melbourne and IZA Bonn)

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Abstract

The socio-economic gradient in health remains a controversial topic in economics and other social sciences. In this paper we develop a new duration model that allows for unobserved persistent individual-specific health shocks and provides new evidence on the roles of socioeconomic characteristics in determining length of life using 19-years of high-quality panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. We also contribute to the rapidly growing literature on life satisfaction by testing if more satisfied people live longer. Our results clearly confirm the importance of income, education and marriage as important factors in determining longevity. For example, a one-log point increase in real household monthly income leads to a 12% decline in the probability of death. We find a large role for unobserved health shocks, with 5-years of shocks explaining the same amount of the variation in length of life as all the other observed individual and socio-economic characteristics (with the exception of age) combined. Individuals with a high level of life satisfaction when initially interviewed live significantly longer, but this effect is completely due to the fact that less satisfied individuals are typically less healthy. We are also able to confirm the findings of previous studies that self-assessed health status has significant explanatory power in predicting future mortality and is therefore a useful measure of morbidity. Finally, we suggest that the duration model developed in this paper is a useful tool when analyzing a wide-range of single-spell durations where individual-specific shocks are likely to be important.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 1488.

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Length: 33 pages
Date of creation: Feb 2005
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1488

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Related research
Keywords: income; education; marriage; life satisfaction; shocks; mortality; duration analysis;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Frijters, Paul, 2002. "The non-parametric identification of lagged duration dependence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 289-292, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Lindahl, Mikael, 2002. "Estimating the Effect of Income on Health and Mortality Using Lottery Prizes as Exogenous Source of Variation in Income," IZA Discussion Papers 442, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  3. Gardner, Jonathan & Oswald, Andrew, 2004. "How is mortality affected by money, marriage, and stress?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1181-1207, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Heckman, James & Singer, Burton, 1984. "A Method for Minimizing the Impact of Distributional Assumptions in Econometric Models for Duration Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 271-320, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Ulf-G. Gerdtham & Magnus Johannesson, 2004. "Absolute Income, Relative Income, Income Inequality, and Mortality," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1). [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Deaton, A., 1998. "Aging and Inequality in Income and Health," Papers 181, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Development Studies.
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  7. Honore, Bo E, 1993. "Identification Results for Duration Models with Multiple Spells," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 60(1), pages 241-46, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Van den Berg, Gerard J., 2000. "Duration Models: Specification, Identification, and Multiple Durations," MPRA Paper 9446, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Paul Contoyannis & Andrew M. Jones & Nigel Rice, 2004. "The dynamics of health in the British Household Panel Survey," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 473-503. [Downloadable!]
  10. Ettner, Susan L., 1996. "New evidence on the relationship between income and health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 67-85, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. James P. Smith, 1999. "Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets: The Dual Relation between Health and Economic Status," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 145-166, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Jonathan Meer & Douglas L. Miller & Harvey S. Rosen, 2003. "Exploring the Health-Wealth Nexus," NBER Working Papers 9554, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Baker, Michael & Melino, Angelo, 2000. "Duration dependence and nonparametric heterogeneity: A Monte Carlo study," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 357-393, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. van Doorslaer, Eddy & Wagstaff, Adam & Bleichrodt, Han & Calonge, Samuel & Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Gerfin, Michael & Geurts, Jose & Gross, Lorna & Hakkinen, Unto & Leu, Robert E., 1997. "Income-related inequalities in health: some international comparisons," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 93-112, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Mikael Lindahl, 2005. "Estimating the Effect of Income on Health and Mortality Using Lottery Prizes as an Exogenous Source of Variation in Income," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1). [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Hugh Gravelle & John Wildman & Matthew Sutton, . "Income, Income Inequality and Health: What can we Learn from Aggregate Data?," Discussion Papers 00/26, Department of Economics, University of York. [Downloadable!]
  17. Ridder, Geert, 1990. "The Non-parametric Identification of Generalized Accelerated Failure-Time Models," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 57(2), pages 167-81, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Frijters, Paul & Haisken-DeNew, John P. & Shields, Michael A., 2005. "The causal effect of income on health: Evidence from German reunification," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 997-1017, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Adda, Jerome & Chandola, Tarani & Marmot, Michael, 2003. "Socio-economic status and health: causality and pathways," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 57-63, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Elbers, Chris & Ridder, Geert, 1982. "True and Spurious Duration Dependence: The Identifiability of the Proportional Hazard Model," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(3), pages 403-09, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Adams, Peter & Hurd, Michael D. & McFadden, Daniel & Merrill, Angela & Ribeiro, Tiago, 2003. "Healthy, wealthy, and wise? Tests for direct causal paths between health and socioeconomic status," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 3-56, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. Heckman, James J, 1991. "Identifying the Hand of the Past: Distinguishing State Dependence from Heterogeneity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 75-79, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Jaap H. Abbring & Gerard J. van den Berg, 2003. "The Nonparametric Identification of Treatment Effects in Duration Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(5), pages 1491-1517, 09. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. David W. Johnston & Carol Propper & Michael A. Shields, 2007. "Comparing Subjective and Objective Measures of Health: Evidence from Hypertension for the Income/Health Gradient," IZA Discussion Papers 2737, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Andrew M. Jones & Stefanie Schurer, 2007. "How does heterogeneity shape the socioeconomic gradient in health satisfaction?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 07/05, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. R. Veenhoven, 2008. "Healthy happiness: effects of happiness on physical health and the consequences for preventive health care," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 449-469, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Lelkes, Orsolya, 2008. "Happiness over the life cycle: exploring age-specific preferences," MPRA Paper 7302, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  5. Silvia Balia, 2007. "Reporting expected longevity and smoking: evidence from the SHARE," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 07/10, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Gisela Hostenkamp & Michael Stolpe, 2006. "The Health Gradient and Early Retirement: Evidence from the German Socio-economic Panel," Kiel Working Papers 1305, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
  7. Wenshu Gao & Russell Smyth, 2009. "Health Human Capital, Height and Wages in China," Monash Economics Working Papers 05/09, Monash University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  8. Paul Frijters & Aydogan Ulker, 2008. "Robustness in Health Research: Do differences in health measures, techniques, and time frame matter?," NCER Working Paper Series 28, National Centre for Econometric Research. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Matthew D. Rablen & Andrew J. Oswald, 2007. "Mortality and Immortality," IZA Discussion Papers 2560, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. Boyce, Christopher J. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Do People Become Healthier after Being Promoted?," IZA Discussion Papers 3894, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  11. Gisela Hostenkamp & Michael Stolpe, 2008. "The Social Costs of Health-related Early Retirement in Germany: Evidence from the German Socio-economic Panel," Kiel Working Papers 1415, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
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