Are people in the SADC region willing to pay more tax to fund public healthcare?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Health expenditure in SADC member states (% of general government expenditure) 2003 & 2005. Source: WHO global health expenditure database (http://apps.who.int/nha/database).

Figure 2. Percentage of respondents who expressed willingness to pay more tax to increase public healthcare spending by country. Source: Author’s compilation based on data from Round 6 of the Afrobarometer survey.

Table 1. Country level variables included in the regression model.

Country	Democracy index (2015)^a	GDP per capita (2015)^b,e	Life expectancy (2015)^c	Current Health Expenditure (CHE) as % Gross Domestic Product (GDP)^f (2015)^d	Current Health Expenditure (CHE) per Capita in US$ (2015)^d
Botswana	7.87	6924.1	66	5.97	389.4
Lesotho	6.59	1039.7	54	8.36	90.9
Madagascar	5.07	401.7	66	5.24	21.0
Malawi	5.55	300.3	63	9.33	34.2
Mauritius	8.28	9630.9	74	5.54	506.1
Mozambique	4.02	382.1	58	5.35	28.3
Namibia	6.31	4415	64	8.93	423.1
South Africa	7.41	5284.6	62	8.2	470.8
Swaziland	3.03	2770.2	57	7.04	232.7
Tanzania	5.76	879.2	65	6.12	31.7
Zambia	5.99	1269.6	61	5.35	69.4
Zimbabwe	3.05	1029.1	60	10.32	94.3

Sources:

^a https://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index

^b https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

^c https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=ZG

^d http://apps.who.int/nha/database/Select/Indicators/en

^eThis was the 2015 PPP GDP current international $.

^fGross Domestic Product is included in the regression model taking into consideration income variation.

Table 2. Multilevel regression results: individual level and country level factors determining willingness to pay more tax.

	Odds ratio	Upper limit	Lower limit
(Intercept)	0.441***	0.339	0.574
Level 1 (Individual level factors)
Trust in Government	1.052***	1.043	1.062
How often gone without medical care (Never/once or twice = 0) Several times	1.034	0.951	1.124
Difficulty to obtain medical treatment (Difficult = 0) Easy	1.162***	1.075	1.257
Age (old age = 0)
Young age	1.142*	1.028	1.269
Middle age	1.045	0.962	1.135
Education (Low education = 0)
Middle Education	1.143**	1.050	1.245
High Education	1.295**	1.097	1.529
Gender (Male = 0)
Female	0.984	0.915	1.057
Place of residence (Urban = 0)
Rural	1.118**	1.031	1.212
Employment Status (Unemployed = 0)
Employed	0.935	0.862	1.013
Level 2 (Country level factors)
Democracy index	0.881	0.647	1.199
GDP	0.978	0.508	1.882
Life expectancy	1.107	0.821	1.494
Health expenditure per capita	1.06	0.541	2.079

Signif. codes: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.