Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Can commercial health insurance improve family happiness?

  • Original Article
  • Published:
SN Business & Economics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper evaluates the happiness benefits of commercial health insurance in China’s multi-level medical security system using a treatment effect model, and explores the ways in which commercial health insurance affects family happiness and the heterogeneity of its effects on different levels of happiness. I found that the current development of commercial health insurance has a significant promotion effect on the level of family happiness, and this promotion effect is partly transmitted by improving family health status and increasing household non-medical health care consumption expenditure. However, the happiness benefits and transmission mechanisms of commercial health insurance have obvious heterogeneity characteristics for families with different levels of happiness, and the positive impact on “happier” families is more prominent. The “Matthew effect” indicates that there are certain unfair problems in commercial health insurance at present. To alleviate this unfair problem, the government and the insurance industry should try to introduce commercial health insurance that benefits more people and fully cater for the needs of different classes of people. The research conclusions of this paper are also applicable to other countries where the development of commercial health insurance is in its infancy.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the CHFS repository, https://chfs.swufe.edu.cn.

Code availability

Contact the author for the corresponding code.

Notes

  1. In 2020, China’s health insurance compensation expenditure was 292.1 billion yuan, accounting for 6% of the entire medical expenditure structure.

References

  • Amponsah AA, Adekoya AF, Weyori BA (2022) Improving the financial security of national health insurance using cloud-based blockchain technology application. Int J Inform Manag Data Insights 2(1):100081

    Google Scholar 

  • Behrent MC (2010) Accidents happen: François Ewald, the “antirevolutionary” Foucault, and the intellectual politics of the French Welfare State. J Mod Hist 82(3):585–624

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bentolila S, Michelacci C, Suarez J (2010) Social contacts and occupational choice. Economica 77(305):20–45

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blümel M et al (2020) Financial risk protection of individuals with private health insurance. Eur J Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckaa165.910

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brunetti M, Giarda E, Torricelli C (2016) Is financial fragility a matter of illiquidity? An appraisal for Italian households. Rev Income Wealth 62(4):628–649

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen Y, Ginger ZJ (2012) Does health insurance coverage lead to better health and educational outcomes? Evidence from rural China. J Health Econ 31(1):1–14

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen H et al. (2023) Family ties and commercial health insurance consumption in China. The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance-Issues and Practice 1–19

  • Choi WI et al (2018) Development of commercial health insurance in China: a systematic literature review. BioMed Res Int. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/3163746

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dong K (2009) Medical insurance system evolution in China. China Econ Rev 20(4):591–597

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frey BS, Stutzer A (2002) What can economists learn from happiness research? J Econ Lit 40(2):402–435

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gao L, Guan J, Wang G (2022) Does media-based health risk communication affect commercial health insurance demand? Evidence from China. Appl Econ 54(18):2122–2134

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glaeser EL, Gottlieb JD, Ziv O (2016) Unhappy cities. J Labor Econ 34(S2):S129–S182

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greene WH (2003) Econometric analysis. Pearson Education India

    Google Scholar 

  • Gruber J, Yelowitz A (1999) Public health insurance and private savings. J Polit Econ 107(6):1249–1274

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heckman JJ (1979) Sample selection bias as a specification error. Econometrica 47:153–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Janzen SA, Carter MR, Ikegami M (2021) Can insurance alter poverty dynamics and reduce the cost of social protection in developing countries? J Risk Insur 88(2):293–324

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinilla J, López-Valcárcel BG (2020) Income and wealth as determinants of voluntary private health insurance: empirical evidence in Spain, 2008–2014. BMC Public Health 20(1):1–10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pradhan M, Prescott N (2002) Social risk management options for medical care in Indonesia. Health Econ 11(5):431–446

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Samuelson PA (1967) Economics: an introductory analysis, 7th edn. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Schanz KU (2019) Beyond compulsion: towards a bigger role for private voluntary health insurance. MiddleEast Insur Rev 4:62–63

    Google Scholar 

  • Somkotra T, Lagrada LP (2008) Payments for health care and its effect on catastrophe and impoverishment: experience from the transition to Universal Coverage in Thailand. Soc Sci Med 67(12):2027–2035

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sun QX et al (2010) The impact of market economy on the development of insurance industry: theoretical analysis and empirical evidence (in Chinese). Financial Res 2:158–172

    Google Scholar 

  • Sun S et al (2016) Subjective well-being and its association with subjective health status, age, sex, region, and socio-economic characteristics in a Chinese population study. J Happiness Stud 17:833–873

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suo L, Wanyan R (2017) Why the development of health insurance is regionally imbalanced: evidence from China. Emerg Mark Financ Trade 53(6):1301–1317

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tian L, Dong H (2023) Study on the dynamic relationship between Chinese residents’ individual characteristics and commercial health insurance demand. Int J Environ Res Public Health 20(6):4797

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tran NLT, Wassmer RW, Lascher EL (2017) The health insurance and life satisfaction connection. J Happiness Stud 18:409–426

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Damme W et al (2004) Out-of-pocket health expenditure and debt in poor households: evidence from Cambodia. Trop Med Int Health 9(2):273–280

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wooldridge JM (2005) Fixed-effects and related estimators for correlated random-coefficient and treatment-effect panel data models. Rev Econ Stat 87(2):385–390

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu B-C et al (2022) Influence of internet use on commercial health insurance of Chinese residents. Front Public Health 10:907124

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang B-M, Prescott N, Bae E-Y (2001) The impact of economic crisis on health-care consumption in Korea. Health Policy Plan 16(4):372–385

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yi R, Huang S (2019) China’s commercial health insurance market. Asia Insurance Review 66–67

  • Zhao T, Wanyan R, Suo L (2023) Research on the effect of commercial health insurance development on economic efficiency. Int J Environ Res Public Health 20(6):5178

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I am especially grateful for the extraordinary advice provided by Prof. Ruiyun Wanyan and Prof. Xiaoquan Wang.

Funding

Not applicable.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Insurance and Economics, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, 100105, China

    Tongpu Zhao

Authors
  1. Tongpu Zhao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

TZ: Conceptualization, data curation, software, writing- original draft, review and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tongpu Zhao.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zhao, T. Can commercial health insurance improve family happiness?. SN Bus Econ 3, 196 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43546-023-00558-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43546-023-00558-6

Keywords

JEL

Search

Navigation