中国人口年龄结构与居民医疗保健消费

本文借助中国2001—2010年的省级面板数据,运用动态面板GMM估计方法,考察了中国人口年龄结构(少儿和老年抚养系数)变化对居民医疗保健消费支出的影响。结果发现,中国少儿抚养系数对居民医疗保健消费支出的影响不显著;老年抚养系数对居民医疗保健消费支出有正影响,即老年抚养系数的上升会带动居民人均医疗保健消费支出的增加。此外,本文还发现,医疗保健消费支出的滞后一期系数都为正,系统GMM两步估计系数为0.51,表明居民医疗保健消费支出存在较强的惯性;人均收入增长对居民医疗保健消费支出有正向的显著影响。

The Impacts of Population Age Structure on Household Health Care Consumption in China

This paper uses the method of GMM to analysis the impacts of population age structure (measured by the youth dependency ratio and the old dependency ratio) on household health care consumption with the panel data from Chinese provinces during the period 2001－2010. The result suggests that the youth dependency ratio does not have a significant impact on household health care consumption, while the old dependency ratio has a positive impact on the household health care consumption, with the rising of the old dependency ratio, the household health care consumption is increasing. In addition, we also find that the lag period coefficient of the residents’ health care consumption is positive, and the coefficient of the system GMM two-step is 0.51; the growth of per capita income has a positive impact on the household health care consumption.