Why has the Health Inequality among Infants Declined? Accounting for the Shrinking Gap
2007/03/02
研討會日期 : 2007-03-02
時間 : 16:00
主講人 : Ms. WanChun Lin
地點 : B棟110會議室
演講者簡介 : Ms. WanChun Lin為Ph.D. Economics，University of California, Los Angeles (June 2007 expected)。
其主要研究領域為Labor and Demographic Economics、Health Economics、Applied Microeconomics。
現正申請本所研究職務中。
演講摘要 : Given that wealthier people are healthier, the increase in income inequality over the past two decades has led to fears that inequalities in health have also increased. Indeed, some papers have found that health disparities have become more salient among some adult populations.
Using the U.S. Vital Statistics 1983-2000, this paper presents a new stylized fact: the infant health gap at age one, as measured by infant mortality has stayed constant over time; while the gap at birth, measured by Apgar scores, has indeed narrowed dramatically. In the face of rising inequality, this paper asks which factors account for the relative improvement in the health of babies of low socioeconomic status. Using a decomposition method, I find that the most important factor in explaining the closing gap (accounting for 40%) is an increase in access to medical care. However, demographic shifts and maternal behavior changes are also critical. For example, research shows that foreign-born Hispanic women on average have better infant health outcomes than African-Americans. Given these racial differences in birth outcomes, the gap in Apgar scores decreased because an increasing number of infants whose mothers are less-educated are born to Hispanic immigrants rather than to African-Americans. There are also several behavioral factors which have had an important impact. Namely, the gap in Apgar scores has decreased because smoking among less-educated women has declined, though this improvement is partially offset by an increase in the number of less-educated women who gain excessive weight during pregnancy. Finally, the gap has decreased because an increasing number of college-educated women are delaying fertility and are seeking fertility treatment, which often leads to multiple births; such behaviors are usually associated with having infants with lower Apgar scores.
