| The rapid economic development after the reform and opening up,along with the advancement of medical technology,the change of ideology and the implementation of population policy,the overall population structure of China has also shown the characteristics of aging,less children and smaller family size catalyzed by historical and practical reasons.The demographic changes will bring about changes in demand,which will lead to retirement problems,increased pressure on social security,and the awakening of public awareness of health management,all of which provide a broad market space for the development of commercial health insurance.Shanghai,with its dominant economic development,is not only a pilot window for a number of financial and insurance policies,but also a province where the trend of aging population,fewer children and smaller family size has emerged to the earliest extent.The local health insurance market is developing well,but the indicators of insurance density and insurance depth are still significantly different from the markets in developed regions of the same economic level.Therefore,this paper chooses Shanghai as the subject to explore the influence of demographic structure on the demand for commercial health insurance from theoretical and empirical perspectives respectively,and to provide reasonable suggestions for the development of the local health insurance market.If Shanghai can make full use of its platform to do more practice,the accumulated experience will also help other provinces to cope with the demographic changes.It will be beneficial for the future development of China’s health insurance market as a whole to let insurance play a better role as a "stabilizer" to disperse risks and social governance.This paper first defines and classifies the concepts of demographic structure and commercial health insurance,and introduces the relevant theories involved in the demand for commercial health insurance.On this basis,we analyze the characteristics and causes of the aging demographic structure,small children and small family size in Shanghai,and the current development of the local commercial health insurance market,taking into account the statistical data of previous years.Then,the paper discusses the impact of the aging demographic structure,small children and small family size on the demand for commercial health insurance in Shanghai from a qualitative perspective.Entering into the empirical analysis part,this paper quantifies the demographic characteristics and health insurance demand into several indicators,such as the elderly population dependency ratio,the child population dependency ratio,the average household size,and the health insurance insurance density.The VAR model is constructed for the period from 1997 to 2020 in Shanghai.After the cointegration test,impulse response analysis and ANOVA,the following conclusions are drawn: the aging of the population structure in the long run promotes the demand for health insurance,but also pays attention to the short-term reverse suppression effect caused by the mismatch between the supply and demand of elderly products;the lesser children may alleviate the economic pressure caused by housing prices and education in disguise in the long run,thus promoting the demand for health insurance.In the long run,the demand for health insurance may be boosted by the reduction of economic pressure from housing prices and education;while the impact of smaller family size on the demand for health insurance may fluctuate in the short run and may have a dampening effect in the long run.Finally,the theoretical analysis and empirical results are combined to make eight recommendations to the government and insurers.This will help the local commercial health insurance market to develop better and faster while helping to solve the difficulties brought by demographic changes. |
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