IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v69y2009i3p387-395.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic reforms and health insurance in China

Author

Listed:
  • Du, Juan

Abstract

During the 1990s, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and collective enterprises continually decreased coverage of public health insurance to their employees. This paper investigates this changing pattern of health insurance coverage in China using panel data from the China Nutrition and Health Survey (1991-2000). It is the first attempt in this literature that tries to identify precisely the effects of specific policies and reforms on health insurance coverage in the transitional period of China. The fixed effects linear model clustering at the province level is used for estimation, and results are compared to alternative models, including pooled OLS, random effects GLS model and fixed effects logit model. Strong empirical evidence is found that unemployment as a side effect of the Open Door Policy, and the deregulation of SOE and collective enterprises were the main causes for the decreasing trend. For example, urban areas that were highly affected by the Open Door Policy were associated with 17 percentage points decrease in the insurance coverage. Moreover, I found evidence that the gaps between SOE and non-SOE employees, collective and non-collective employees, urban and rural employees have considerably decreased during the ten years.

Suggested Citation

  • Du, Juan, 2009. "Economic reforms and health insurance in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 387-395, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:69:y:2009:i:3:p:387-395
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(09)00294-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chen, Aimin, 2005. "Assessing China's economic performance since 1978: Material attainments and beyond," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 499-527, August.
    2. Gordon G. Liu & Xiaodong Wu & Chaoyang Peng & Alex Z. Fu, 2003. "Urbanization And Health Care In Rural China," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 21(1), pages 11-24, January.
    3. Sylvie Démurger & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Wing Thye Woo & Shuming Bao & Gene Chang & Andrew Mellinger, 2002. "Geography, Economic Policy, and Regional Development in China," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 1(1), pages 146-197.
    4. Hsiao, William C. L., 1995. "The Chinese health care system: Lessons for other nations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 1047-1055, October.
    5. Liu, Yuanli & Hsiao, William C. & Eggleston, Karen, 1999. "Equity in health and health care: the Chinese experience," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 49(10), pages 1349-1356, November.
    6. Teh‐Wei Hu & Michael Ong & Zi‐Hua Lin & Elizabeth Li, 1999. "The effects of economic reform on health insurance and the financial burden for urban workers in China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(4), pages 309-321, June.
    7. Li, Wei, 1997. "The Impact of Economic Reform on the Performance of Chinese State Enterprises, 1980-1989," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(5), pages 1080-1106, October.
    8. Grogan, Colleen M., 1995. "Urban economic reform and access to health care coverage in the People's Republic of China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 1073-1084, October.
    9. John Giles & Albert Park & Fang Cai, 2003. "How has Economic Restructuring Affected China???s Urban Workers?," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-628, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    10. HO, Lok Sang, 1995. "Market reforms and China's health care system," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 1065-1072, October.
    11. Akin, John S. & Dow, William H. & Lance, Peter M., 2004. "Did the distribution of health insurance in China continue to grow less equitable in the nineties? Results from a longitudinal survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 293-304, January.
    12. Borjas, George J., 2003. "Welfare reform, labor supply, and health insurance in the immigrant population," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 933-958, November.
    13. Gallup, John L. & Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Mellinger, Andrew, "undated". "Geography and Economic Development," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics geodata, Boston College Department of Economics.
    14. Kaestner, Robert & Kaushal, Neeraj, 2003. "Welfare reform and health insurance coverage of low-income families," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 959-981, November.
    15. Lin, Justin Yifu, 1992. "Rural Reforms and Agricultural Growth in China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 34-51, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sajid Mohy Ul Din & Arpah Abu-Bakar & Angappan Regupathi, 2017. "Does insurance promote economic growth: A comparative study of developed and emerging/developing economies," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1390029-139, January.
    2. Xu Cui & Jing Jian Xiao & Jingtao Yi, 2019. "Employment Type, Residential Status And Consumer Financial Capability: Evidence From China Household Finance Survey," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(01), pages 57-81, March.
    3. Carine Milcent & Feng Jin, 2010. "Decrease in the healthcare demand in rural China: A side effect of the industrialization process?," PSE Working Papers halshs-00564848, HAL.
    4. Linda G. Martin & Qiushi Feng & Robert F. Schoeni & Yi Zeng, 2014. "Trends in Functional and Activity Limitations among Chinese Oldest-Old, 1998 to 2008," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 40(3), pages 475-495, September.
    5. Liu, Jun-Qiang, 2011. "Dynamics of social health insurance development: Examining the determinants of Chinese basic health insurance coverage with panel data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(4), pages 550-558, August.
    6. Yu, Hao, 2015. "Universal health insurance coverage for 1.3 billion people: What accounts for China's success?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(9), pages 1145-1152.
    7. Juergen Jung & Jialu Liu Streeter, 2015. "Does health insurance decrease health expenditure risk in developing countries? The case of China," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(2), pages 361-384, October.
    8. Yinzi Jin & Zhiyuan Hou & Donglan Zhang, 2016. "Determinants of Health Insurance Coverage among People Aged 45 and over in China: Who Buys Public, Private and Multiple Insurance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-15, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adam Wagstaff & Winnie Yip & Magnus Lindelow & William C. Hsiao, 2009. "China's health system and its reform: a review of recent studies," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(S2), pages 7-23, July.
    2. Degeling, Pieter & Zhang, Kai & Coyle, Barbara & Xu, Lingzhong & Meng, Qingyue & Qu, Jiangbin & Hill, Michael, 2006. "Clinicians and the governance of hospitals: A cross-cultural perspective on relations between profession and management," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 757-775, August.
    3. Mocan, H. Naci & Tekin, Erdal & Zax, Jeffrey S., 2004. "The Demand for Medical Care in Urban China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 289-304, February.
    4. Teh‐Wei Hu & Michael Ong & Zi‐Hua Lin & Elizabeth Li, 1999. "The effects of economic reform on health insurance and the financial burden for urban workers in China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(4), pages 309-321, June.
    5. Justin Yifu Lin & Peilin Liu, 2005. "Development Strategies and Regional Income Disparities in China," Development Economics Working Papers 21984, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    6. van der Wouden, Frank, 2022. "Are Chinese cities getting smarter in terms of knowledge and technology they produce?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    7. Burgess, Robin & Venables, Anthony J., 2004. "Toward a microeconomics of growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3257, The World Bank.
    8. Wu, Yanrui, 1997. "China's health care sector in transition: resources, demand and reforms," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 137-152, February.
    9. Kang Yu & Xiangfei Xin & J. Alexander Nuetah & Ping Guo, 2011. "Agricultural growth dynamics and decision mechanism in Chinese provinces: 1988‐2008," China Agricultural Economic Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 3(2), pages 150-170, May.
    10. Pedroni, Peter & Yao, James Yudong, 2006. "Regional income divergence in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 294-315, April.
    11. Jarreau, Joachim & Poncet, Sandra, 2012. "Export sophistication and economic growth: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 281-292.
    12. Andersson, Fredrik N.G. & Edgerton, David L. & Opper, Sonja, 2013. "A Matter of Time: Revisiting Growth Convergence in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 239-251.
    13. Guariglia, Alessandra & Poncet, Sandra, 2008. "Could financial distortions be no impediment to economic growth after all? Evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 633-657, December.
    14. Sudip Ranjan Basu, 2005. "Correlating Growth with Well-Being during Economic Reforms Evidence from India and China," Development and Comp Systems 0509010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Bhatt, Vipul & Liao, Mouhua & Zhao, Min Qiang, 2023. "Government policy and land price dynamics: A quantitative assessment of China’s factor market reforms," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    16. Caroline Stern & Mikko Makinen & Zongxin Qian, 2017. "FinTechs in China – with a special focus on peer to peer lending," Journal of Chinese Economic and Foreign Trade Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 10(3), pages 215-228, October.
    17. Yan Xin & Dongchuan Wang & Lihui Zhang & Yingyi Ma & Xing Chen & Haiqing Wang & Hongyi Wang & Kangjian Wang & Hui Long & Hua Chai & Jianshe Gao, 2022. "Cooperative analysis of infrastructure perfection and residents’ living standards in poverty-stricken counties in Qinghai Province," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 3687-3703, March.
    18. You, Heyuan & Zhang, Xiaoling, 2017. "Sustainable livelihoods and rural sustainability in China: Ecologically secure, economically efficient or socially equitable?," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-13.
    19. Batisse, Cecile, 2002. "Dynamic externalities and local growth: A panel data analysis applied to Chinese provinces," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(2-3), pages 231-251.
    20. Zhicheng Liang, 2011. "Financial Reforms, Growth and Regional Disparity in Post-reform China," Working Papers halshs-00556978, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:69:y:2009:i:3:p:387-395. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.