Investigating the Health Effect of Contextual Income Inequality and Its Mechanisms in China

• In Event: 322 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Neighborhood/ Community Context

Abstract

Most studies examining the health effects of contextual inequality focused on Western societies with developed economies. Moreover, the mechanisms underlying the link between contextual inequality and health are not well understood. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the levels of income inequality in urban districts or rural counties in China and the health of individuals living in these places. We also assess three potential mechanisms: social comparison, social capital and health-promoting community infrastructure. We use data from the 2012 Chinese Labor Dynamics Survey, which is a nationally representative survey with individual, household and community components. It includes 16,000 individuals, 10,600 households and 95 communities in 29 provinces. Contextual income inequality is predictive of individual self-reported health in rural areas, after individual demographic and socioeconomic status and other community socioeconomic features are controlled for. We find that the indicators of social comparison and social capital are significantly associated with health, but contextual income inequality is not predictive of either social comparison or social capital. Among indicators of health-promoting community infrastructure, only the presence of bus stops in a community is associated with both individual health and contextual income inequality. Our analysis so far thus has not provided support for social comparison or social capital as the mechanisms for the health effect of contextual inequality; it provides weak support for health-promoting infrastructure as a mechanism. Further analysis will assess the possibility that both the health effect of contextual inequality and its mechanisms are heterogeneous for people with different socioeconomic status.

Author

• Lei Jin, Chinese University of Hong Kong