Inequalities in Health of Urban China - the Socioeconomic Correlations

Abstract: The thesis studies on the inequalities in health as an issue of the subject Health Economics. Inequalities in health is also known as a consequence of the inequalities in socioeconomic status and factors such as income, age, gender, education, employment status, place of residence, and etc. Due to the limitation on time and data, the thesis focuses on the urban individual statistics of China in the year 2002. The purpose of the study is to evaluate how and to what extent different factors had the impact on health in an individual perspective. One of the more surprising results is that income is found to be somehow quite unimportant to health. In comparison, employment status was rather decisive to health – the unemployed people had much poorer self-reported health than the employed, even the retired ones. Similarly, health was also significantly differed by the many places of residence. Gender difference was important as well, for females had worse self-reported health than males. Completed tertiary education could effectively improve heath, rather than the lower levels. Hopefully, the study can help to explain or insinuate the problems in the Chinese society and the health system, which can therefore support any future research works and social reforms.