An Empirical Research On Residents' Health Demand In Rural China

This paper is an empirical economic study on the demand for health in rural China basing on the human capital and Grossman's health capital demand theory. At the same time, we tested the Grossman's theoretical predictions. These predications are as follows: Firstly, if the rate of depreciation on the stock of health rises over the life cycle, the quantity of health demanded will fall with the life cycle; Secondly, consumers' demand for health has a positive relationship with the wage; Finally, more educated people are more efficient producers of health.Using the data of the China Health and Nutrition Survey in 2004, the paper chooses 3987 rural residents which are from nine provinces in China, and two methods were applied to estimate the current health capital stock of the rural residents. And then compares the differences among the nine provinces. The ordered Logit and Tobit models were employed to analyses factors influencing demand for health of the rural residents.The findings of descriptive research on health status of the rural residents indicate, based on the self-evaluation of health status, there were some differences among provinces, but the rural residents' average health status was above the general level. The health status of residents from Guangxi and Guizhou was the worst and below the general level. Male's self-evaluation of health status was better than the female's. Based the quality of well-being Scale, different provinces also had different health status. But the male's quality of well-being scale was worse than the female's.The results of empirical research on the demand for health in rural China indicated, age and the medical care price have significantly negative effects on rural residents' demand for health, while education and family average income have prominently positive influence. The health self-evaluation of worked rural residents was better than others. The Quality of Well-being scale of married rural residents was higher than others. On the whole, compared with the Quality of Well-being scale, the regression results by the self-evaluation of health status conformed to the Grossman's theoretical prediction better.