Financial literacy, health engagement and residents’ health: Evidence from China

Abstract

This study took residents’ health level as the research object, adopted the perspective of financial literacy, and used the 2014–2018 China Family Panel Studies data to analyze the impact of financial literacy on the residents’ health. The study found that financial literacy could have a significant positive impact on the residents’ health, with long-term effects. Furthermore, it promoted the residents’ health engagement and improved their health through the intermediary effects of income and health expenditure. In addition, the impact of financial literacy on the residents’ health was heterogeneous between urban and rural areas. Compared with the case for rural residents, the improvement of financial literacy significantly improved the health of the urban residents. The outcomes of this research were the exploration of means to improve residents’ health from a new economic perspective, promote residents’ health engagement, and improve residents’ health.