Abstract
The relationship between income and health has been widely established. However, there are some issues which need to be addressed in order to study accurately the socio-economic gradient in health. Firstly, there is a specific issue linked to the dynamic nature of health. The current health status is closely linked to past health circumstances and is a good predictor of future health status. Hence we should implement models which are able to take into account the dynamic nature of health. Secondly, the study of health can be affected by a more general problem that often plagues sociological models aimed at estimating causal effects, that of non-observed heterogeneity leading to endogeneity. Both genetic factors and psychological predispositions that are important predictors of health may easily be correlated with one’s socio-economic status, thus creating endogeneity. If analyzed with the appropriate methods, panel data help us tackle these issues. In this work we study the effect of income on self-assessed health in Switzerland using 13 waves (from 1999 to 2012) of the Swiss Household Panel. We apply a fixed effects model, a random effect model and a dynamic panel model (more precisely, the Mundlak–Chamberlain model). Whereas in both the fixed and the random effects models income appears to be significantly related to health, in the Mundlak–Chamberlain model this effect disappears. Results show that models based on different assumptions and including a different set of controls give quite different results.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arendt, J.N.: Education effects on health: causal or from unobserved components? A panel data analysis with endogenous education. Institute of Economics, Mimeo. http://www.econ.ku.dk/okojn/Public/Research/jarendt.pdf. (2001). Accessed 3 September 2013
Banks, J., Marmot, M., Oldfield, Z., et al.: Disease and disadvantage in the United States and in England. J Am. Med. Assoc. 295, 2037–2045 (2006)
Bartels, B.L., Box-Steffensmeier, J.M., Smidt, C.D., Smith R.M.: The dynamic properties of individual-level party identification in the United States. Elect. Stud. 30, 210–222 (2011)
Blane, D., Bartley, M., Smith, G.D.: Disease aetiology and materialist explanations of socioeconomic mor-tality differentials. Eur. J. Public Health 7, 385–391 (1997)
Cameron, C., Trivedi, P.K.: Microeconometrics using stata. Stata Press, College Station (2009)
Cappellari, L., Jenkins, S.P.: Modelling low income transitions. J. Appl. Econometr. 19(5), 593–610 (2004)
Chamberlain, G.: Panel data. In Griliches, Z., Intriligator, M.D. (eds.) Handbook of Econometrics,1st edn, Vol. 2, pp. 1247–1318, Elsevier (1984).
Christen, M., Gatignon, H.: Estimating the effect of strategic variables: with limited within-cross- Section Variance. http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/faculty/personal/hgatignon/publications/documents/UnobsrvedEffectsJan09.pdf (2009) Accessed 3 Sept 2013
Ebner, Y.: The impact of the economic crisis on health inequalities. Paper presented at the AER conference on health inequalities, Brussels, 7 October (2010)
Feinstein, J.S.: The relationship between socioeconomic status and health: a review of the literature. Milbank Q. 71, 279–322 (1993)
Ferraro, K.F., Farmer, M.M.: Utility of health data from social surveys: is there a gold standard for measuring morbidity? Am. Sociol. Rev. 64, 303–315 (1999)
Grabner, M.J.: The causal effect of education on obesity: evidence from compulsory schooling laws. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1505075 (2008). Accessed 3 Sept 2013
Halliday, T.J.: Heterogeneity, state dependence and health. IZA DP No. 3463 (2008)
Heckman, J.: Heterogeneity and state dependence. In: Rosen, Sherwin (ed.) Studies in Labor Markets, pp. 91–104. University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1981)
Idler, E.L., Benyamini, Y.: Self-rated health and mortality: a review of twenty-seven community studies. J. Health Soc. Behav. 38, 21–37 (1997)
Jylha, M.: What is self-rated health and why does it predict mortality? Towards a unified conceptual model. Soc. Sci. Med. 69, 307–316 (2009)
Link, B.G., Phelan, J.: Social conditions as fundamental cause of health. J. Health Soc. Behav. 35, 80–94 (1995)
Lynch, J., Kaplan, G., Shema, S.J.: Cumulative impact of sustained economic hardship on physical, cognitive, psychological and social functioning. N. Engl. J. Med. 337, 1889–95 (1997)
Mackenbach, J.: Income inequality and population health. BMJ 324, 1 (2002)
Mackenbach, J.P., Stirbu, I., Roskam, A., Schaap, M., Menvielle, G., Leinsalu, M., Kunst, A.E.: Socioeconomic inequalities in health in 22 European countries. N. Engl. J. med. 358, 2468–2481 (2008)
Marmot, M., Wilkinson, R. (eds.): Social Determinants of Health. Oxford University Press, New York (2006)
McDowell, I., Newell, C.: Measuring Health: A Guide to Rating Scales and Questionnaires. Oxford University Press, New York (1996)
Mundlak, Y.: On the pooling of time series and cross sectional data. Econometrica, 46(1), 69–86 (1978).
Singer, J., Willett, J.: Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis. Oxford University Press, New York (2003)
Treiman, D.J.: Quantitative Data Analysis: Doing Social Research to Test Ideas. Jossey-Bass/Wiley, San Francisco (2009)
Willson, A.E., Shuey, K.M., Elder, G.H.: Cumulative advantage processes as mechanism of inequality in life course health. Am. J. Sociol. 112, 1886–1924 (2007)
WHO.: The financial crisis and global health. Report of a high-levelconsultation. http://www.who.int/topics/financial_crisis/financialcrisis_report_200902.pdf. (2009). Accessed 3 Sept 2013
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sara, D.B., Mario, L. Modelling social inequalities in health in contemporary Switzerland. Qual Quant 49, 39–50 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-013-9972-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-013-9972-8