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Ex Ante Inequality of Opportunity in Health among the Elderly in China: A Distributional Decomposition Analysis of Biomarkers

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  • Ding, Lanlin

    (Peking University)

  • Jones, Andrew M.

    (University of York)

  • Nie, Peng

    (Xi’an Jiaotong University)

Abstract

We present a comprehensive analysis of ex ante inequality of opportunity (IOp) in health among Chinese adults aged 60+ and decompose the contributions of different sets of circumstances. Data are drawn from the 2011 and 2015 waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) linked with the 2014 CHARLS Life History Survey. We use a range of blood-based biomarkers, and apply a re-centered influence function (RIF) approach and a Shapley-Shorrocks decomposition to partition the contribution of circumstances across different quantiles of the biomarker distributions. We find that IOp accounts for between 3.75% and 29.57% of total health inequality in old age across the range of biomarkers. Shapley-Shorrocks decompositions show that spatial circumstances such as urban/rural residence and province of residence are the dominant determinants of IOp for most of the biomarkers. Distributional decompositions further reveal that the relative contributions to IOp in health of household socioeconomic status and health and nutrition conditions in childhood increase towards the right tails of the distribution for most of the biomarkers, where the clinical risk is focused.

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  • Ding, Lanlin & Jones, Andrew M. & Nie, Peng, 2020. "Ex Ante Inequality of Opportunity in Health among the Elderly in China: A Distributional Decomposition Analysis of Biomarkers," IZA Discussion Papers 13292, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13292
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    2. Apostolos Davillas & Andrew M Jones, 2021. "The first wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic and its impact on socioeconomic inequality in psychological distress in the UK," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(7), pages 1668-1683, July.
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    5. Davillas, Apostolos & M. Jones, Andrew, 2020. "The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on inequality of opportunity in psychological distress in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2020-07, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    6. David Pérez-Mesa & à ngel S. Marrero, 2024. "Adult health and inequality of opportunity in Spain," Working Papers 671, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    7. Cleary, Rebecca & Liu, Yizao & Carlson, Andrea C., 2022. "Differences in the Distribution of Nutrition Between Households Above and Below Poverty," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322267, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
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    22. Enza Simeone, 2023. "Inequality in health status during the COVID-19 in the UK: does the impact of the second lockdown policy matter?," Working Papers 661, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    inequality of opportunity; China; CHARLS; biomarkers; Shapley-Shorrocks decomposition; unconditional quantile regressions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality

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