Parental health and children's economic well-being

Medical insurance, vulnerability to poverty, and wealth inequality

Background

China has made remarkable achievements in alleviating poverty under its current poverty standards. Despite these immense successes, the challenge of consolidating these achievements remains. In reality, health risks are among the significant factors causing rural households to fall into poverty, and medical insurance is the significant factor mitigating household vulnerability to poverty. Therefore, alleviating or guarding against households falling into poverty is essential.

Methods

This paper establishes a multi-equilibrium model that incorporates heterogeneous health risks and medical insurance. Through parameter calibration and value function iteration, numerical solutions are derived.

Results

Heterogeneous health risks significantly increase poverty vulnerability and wealth inequality in rural households. Medical insurance, through its investment incentives and loss compensation effects, efficiently mitigates these issues, especially benefiting those in poorer health. Furthermore, the dual-slanted compensation policy efficiently mitigates the adverse effects of "reverse redistribution."

Conclusion

Medical insurance effectively mitigates household vulnerability to poverty and wealth inequality. Government departments must establish health records for residents. By recognizing variations in health conditions, these departments can provide households with poorer health conditions with a higher medical expense compensation ratio. In addition, the government should further focus medical expense reimbursements toward households on the cusp of escaping poverty to ensure that they are not plunged back (or further) into poverty due to medical expenses.

Endogenous health risks, poverty traps, and the roles of health insurance in poverty alleviation

BACKGROUND

Family education investment is a key factor in reducing intergenerational transmission of poverty. At the price of higher health risk, the poor may overdraw their bodies to earn more money to invest in education. This study investigates the effect of physical overdraft, health risks and health insurance on poverty and economic growth.

METHODS

This paper proposes an economic development model of endogenous health risks and poverty by setting up a physical overdraft decision. Furthermore, we introduce mutual health insurance mechanism to analyze its poverty alleviation effects.

RESULTS

First, this study shows that health risks weaken the economy and are among the leading causes of poverty. Second, mutual health insurance can alleviate, but not completely eliminate, the negative impact of health risks on the economy. Third, appropriate health insurance arrangements can lift some or even all poor households out of poverty.

CONCLUSION

Health risks have a significant effect on poverty. Furthermore, health insurance mechanisms have the advantages of transferring health risks, reducing poverty and improving health equity.

The Temporal Dynamics of Childhood Economic Deprivation and Children's Achievement

Economic deprivation during childhood adversely affects achievement in adolescence and early adulthood. Economically disadvantaged children tend to achieve less than their more advantaged peers on a variety of measures of educational and socioeconomic achievement. Researchers recognize that what matters for achievement is not merely exposure to economic deprivation during childhood but also the temporal dynamics of deprivation. Recent studies have found that the effects of childhood economic disadvantage on achievement depend on the timing of deprivation (early childhood versus middle or late childhood), the sequencing of deprivation (whether family income is rising or falling), and the overall duration of exposure to deprivation. In this article, I describe conceptual and methodological advances in understanding the temporal dynamics of childhood economic disadvantage, and address the implications of these improvements for our knowledge of how deprivation affects children's achievement.

Profiles of Risk: Maternal Health, Socioeconomic Status, and Child Health

Child health is fundamental to well-being and achievement throughout the life course. Prior research has demonstrated strong associations between familial socioeconomic resources and children's health outcomes, with especially poor health outcomes among disadvantaged youth who experience a concentration of risks, yet little is known about the influence of maternal health as a dimension of risk for children. This research used nationally representative U.S. data from the National Health Interview Surveys in 2007 and 2008 (N = 7,361) to evaluate the joint implications of maternal health and socioeconomic disadvantage for youth. Analyses revealed that maternal health problems were present in a substantial minority of families, clustered meaningfully with other risk factors, and had serious implications for children's health. These findings support the development of health policies and interventions aimed at families.

Early life course pathways of adult depression and chronic pain

Applying cumulative inequality theory, this study examines the extent to which childhood socioeconomic disadvantage and maternal depression increase the risk of major depression and chronic pain in U.S. working-aged adults. Further, I assess whether low socioeconomic status amplifies the risk of adult depression and/or pain. Using data from the 2003 National Comorbidity Survey Replication (N=4339), I find that socioeconomic disadvantage and maternal depression during youth increases the risk of adult depression and/or chronic pain. The probability of having chronic pain increases in magnitude over the life course for adults whose parents have lower educational attainment relative to those with more highly educated parents. Childhood socioeconomic circumstances are not completely explained by adulthood socioeconomic status indicators. These findings help illustrate the far-reaching influence of childhood context on adult physical and mental health.

The family model stress and maternal psychological symptoms: mediated pathways from economic hardship to parenting

Although much of the extant research on low-income families has targeted parental depression as the predominant psychological response to economic hardship, the current study examined a range of maternal psychological symptoms that may mediate the relations between early economic pressure and later parenting behaviors. A family stress model was examined using data from 1,142 mothers living in 2 areas of high rural poverty, focusing on the infancy through toddlerhood period. Maternal questionnaires and observations of mother-child interactions were collected across 4 time points (6, 15, 24, and 36 months). Results from structural equation analyses indicated that early economic pressure was significantly related to a variety of symptoms (depression, hostility, anxiety, and somatization), but only depression and somatization were significantly related to decreased levels of sensitive, supportive parenting behaviors. In contrast, anxiety was positively associated with sensitive parenting. Depression and anxiety were both found to mediate the relations between economic pressure and sensitive parenting behaviors. Results further suggest that mothers did not experience change in objective economic hardship over time but did experience a small decrease in economic pressure. Discussion centers on the apparent indirect influence of early economic hardship on later psychological symptoms and parenting behaviors, as well as detailing the need for broader and more complex perspectives on maternal psychological responses that arise as a result of economic disadvantage.