Bayesian and decomposition analyses for health inequality in Japan

ABSTRACT

In this article, the author investigates the inequality of health conditions in Japan using self-reported health condition data collected during a Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions in Japan. The used data is ordinal, and inequality measures for ordinal data are introduced. Bayesian and decomposition analyses for the inequality of health conditions show that the proportion of young people has decreased and that, from 1998 to 2016, health inequality also decreased. The decrease in the proportion of young people is responsible for the lower health inequality.

KEYWORDS:

• Health inequality
• ordinal data
• Bayesian analysis
• decomposition of inequality

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• C11
• C35
• D39
• I14

Acknowledgments

The author is most grateful to Prof. D. Chotikapanich for many helpful suggestions for this research. However, the responsibility for the text (with any remaining errors) rests entirely upon the author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by JSPS [KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP16K03592 and JP20K01590].