Socio-economic inequality in early childhood health 2010-2016: evidence from China

ABSTRACT

Although health inequality issues caused by the differences in economic status gain much attention, specific information on early childhood health inequality is still scarce. This study aims to assess socioeconomic inequality in the distribution of early childhood health among Chinese children with concentration index (CI) decomposition method. Using national data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we find that the overall health level of children has increased and the health inequality has reduced to some extent from 2010 to 2016. However, health inequality still exists among children aged 0–5 with different economic statuses, and children from higher-income families have better health. The decomposition of inequality shows that family economic status, genetic factors related to parents’ health, and type of childcare all have a positive contribution to inequality.

KEYWORDS:

• Socioeconomic inequality
• early childhood health
• concentration index
• concentration index decomposition method

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• D63
• J13
• I10

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ $\mathrm{H}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{Z}=\frac{\mathrm{o}\mathrm{b}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{v}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{t}-\mathrm{m}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{S}\mathrm{D}}$This score is recommended by the World Health Organization as an indicator to measure the health status of children.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China under Grant [No.17CSH019] and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant [No. N171401005].