Welfare State Transfers and Population Health in Rich Democracies, 1960-2010

• In Event: 244 - Regular Session. Nation-State Welfare Policy

Abstract

A growing literature on political economy of health has provided valuable information about how it is that welfare state regimes, welfare state generosity and specific social policies may each affect health at the population level. This study expands upon that research in three ways. First, I include a multitude of policies related to wide variety of target areas (such as housing, families, employment) and compare their relative contributions by health outcome. I also include public healthcare spending as a control variable in each of my models, a rarely accounted for, but potentially potent, confounder. Lastly, I apply the theoretical framework of social investment to try and frame how it is the welfare state might bestow health benefits not delivered solely through public healthcare. The analysis proceeds using macro-level data on eight social spending streams as well as infant mortality, life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at age 65 from 22 rich democracies for the years 1980-2010. With pooled time-series cross-sectional (TSCS) data, I employ two-way fixed effects models to address concerns about unobserved heterogeneity. The results of this study indicate that individuals in nations with more generous welfare spending have better health than those in nations with comparatively less generous welfare spending. This is the case for overall welfare spending in the case of infant mortality as well as for particular welfare transfers in the case of all health outcomes. The relevance of individual transfer measures vary somewhat depending on the outcome.

Author

• Megan M. Reynolds, University of Utah