Research on Inequality of Household Consumption and Social Welfare from the Perspective of Household Non-medical Expenditure

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-16944/v1

Abstract

Background In China, income inequality has raised substantially over the last 40 years, especially after21st century.The rise in inequality in China has received considerable attention in academic field. But existing studies have paid more attention to comparative research on the relationship between household income inequality and consumption inequality, and ignored the impact of social welfare changes on household or overall consumption levels during the same period.

Methods In this paper, we present an analysis of the trends in inequality of income and consumption in China from 1998 to 2015.Based on the data of China Health and Nutrition Survey(CHNS),we find that household income and consumption inequality have increased substantially over last 30 years.Utilize the inequality of consumption and social welfare and according to the differences in the composition of household consumption, medical consumption is used as the dividing standard to evaluate the inequality of non-medical consumption. In terms of empirical tests, a mixed-panel ols model was constructed to explore the inequality differences in household consumption under non-medical consumption and medical consumption samples.

Results First, in terms of consumption inequality, from 1989 to 2015, Chinese household income inequality and consumption inequality showed an increasing trend. Among them, overall consumption inequality was mainly caused by urban and rural consumption inequality. Second,the results show that in terms of overall social welfare, the deterioration of consumption distribution has replaced the growth of social welfare caused by economic growth, and the estimated results under non-medical consumption inequality are less different from the overall. Third, the results of the panel fixed-effect test show that income inequality is the main positive influence factor on consumption inequality, but participation in medical insurance has a negative impact on urban and rural household consumption inequality,illness has a negative impact on household medical inequality and non-medical consumer inequality.

Conclusion The result can provide a solid reference for understanding China's consumption inequality and also political implications for the government to weigh efficiency and fairness.From the perspective of consumption policy interventions, it is necessary to promote government departments to better safeguard the health maintenance of healthy or sub-healthy people through health management policies, and promote the cost protection effect of basic medical insurance policies on unhealthy people.

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