2012 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Empirical Analyses on the Relationship between Income and Health Inequality in a Rapidly Aging Society
| Project/Area Number |
23730255
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Research Field |
Applied economics
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| Research Institution | Waseda University |
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Principal Investigator |
KONISHI Meng 早稲田大学, 高等研究所, 助教 (30589578)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2011 – 2012
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| Keywords | 高齢化 / 健康投資 / 退職 / 所得による健康不平等 / Regression Discontinuity |
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| Research Abstract |
This research project empirically investigated the interrelationship among employment, income and health, using rich household survey data from Japan. The study focuses on two main research topics : (i) the effects of retirement on health investment behaviors, and (ii) the relationship between income distribution and health inequality. Our main findings on the first topic were : (a) upon retirement, individuals significantly reduce the intensity of smoking by 2.3 cigarettes a day, while the probability of drinking and regular-exercising increases by approximately 20% and 55% for individuals who have retired ; (b) the effect on smoking is stronger for retirement from permanent employment than that for complete retirement, while the effects on drinking and regular exercising are less robust for retirement from permanent employment. Our findings on the second topic include: (a) individuals' self-reported health status has been declining continuously in Japan over the past three decades and health difference between individuals with high incomes and low incomes has been increasing ; (b) income distribution (e.g. mean, median, mode, etc.) differs significantly by health status, and the health-income gradient varies significantly by population age. With the rapid population aging process in Japan, declining health status and increasing health inequality raises the serious concerns on rising medical costs and social security spending.
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