The Effects Of Public Pension On Health In China

Health is a basic human need and a basic right of citizens.The party and government have always attached great importance to the health of the people.The“Healthy China 2030” Planning Outline proposes that people’s health should be placed in a strategic position of priority development,and the concept of promoting health should be integrated into the whole process of public policy formulation and implementation.Public pension is an important public policy that not only provides financial security for the basic life of the elderly,but it also has a positive impact on health.In recent years,China public pension system has undergone important reforms and improvements.Under the Chinese context,research on the health effects of public pension is of great significance.This study is based on Grossman’s health demand theory,annuity moral hazard theory,income inequality hypothesis,fundamental cause theory,mainly using the data of China Family Panel Survey(CFPS),based on the evaluation of the development status of China’s public pension,this paper empirically tests the health effect and mechanism of public pension.First,based on the three national survey data of CFPS(2018),CHFS(2017)and CGSS(2017),the coverage of public pension is 74.02%,71.73% and 72.47%respectively,which is far from the goal of universal participation.Actuarial studies have found that for employees with public pension with low contribution and short period,they will face the risk of insufficient pension.In addition,the public pension income for insured persons of urban and rural residents is relatively low.Second,public pension system has a positive impact on the health of the elderly.Compared with the elderly without pension,public pension for employees can significantly improve the health of the elderly,while the estimated results of the public pension for urban and rural residents are not significant.However,the heterogeneity analysis shows that the public pension for urban and rural residents has a certain promoting effect on the health of the rural elderly.There is a positive effect between pension income and the health of the elderly,that is,as the pension income increases,the health of the elderly also improves.Pension income can affect the health of the elderly through material factors and psychosocial behavioral factors.Using CLHLS2008-2018 data,empirical research based on Cox proportional risk model also found that public pension reduced the risk of death of the elderly.Third,the pension income gap also has an impact on the health of the elderly.There are obvious occupational differences,regional differences and individual differences in public pension.The Gini coefficient of pension income reached 0.64,with 0.29 in urban areas and 0.67 in rural areas.Empirical studies have shown that pension income gaps have a significant negative impact on the health of older adults.The effects of pension income disparity on the health of older adults can be explained by the new materialism hypotheses and psychosocial behavioral hypotheses.Fourth,the intergenerational spillover effect of public pension on children’s health.height for age z score(HAZs)was used to measure children’s health level.CFPS(2018)data showed that the average HAZs score of children was-0.45.If-2 is taken as the critical value,the growth retardation rate of the sample children is 23%.The empirical study shows that the HAZs of children from pensioners are significantly higher than those from non pensioners.Instrumental variable estimation and propensity score matching method were used to estimate,and the results were consistent.Fifth,the impact of public pension on population mortality.Based on the provincial panel data from 2005 to 2019,the fixed effect model and panel instrumental variable estimation show that the increase in the replacement rate of public pension has significantly reduced the mortality of the population.Further research shows that the improvement of public pension level may have a positive impact on health through the channel of medical expenditure.The mechanism of food consumption expenditure failed to pass the test.This study has important policy implications in the context of building a healthy China.We should pay attention to the social determinants of health,by reforming the public pension to improve national health.enhancing the labor market adaptability and governance ability of public pension to expand the coverage of the system;Adjust the public pension for urban and rural residents and the treatment level of public pension for employees to improve the adequacy of the system;Narrowing the gap of public pension between systems and regions to improve the fairness of the system.