Does health insurance coverage lead to better child health? Evidence from China

Abstract

Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, this study investigated the impact of health insurance coverage on children’s health in China. To address the potential endogeneity between insurance and health, we adopted the instrumental variable probit model. We found that insurance enrollment significantly improved the health of children, especially urban children, but there was no significant insurance effect across gender. After using the propensity score matching method, an alternative measure of child health, and a sub-sample of children aged above 10, our major finding of the insurance effect on child health is verified and robust. We further conducted the path analysis by identifying three potential paths through which medical insurance improved child health. We found that child health behaviour and nutritional intake are the effective paths between insurance enrollment and health status. These results provided implications for policy makers in constructing and developing the supportive system of child medical insurance in China.