The impact of China’s endowment insurance system on health behavior

Abstract

Health behavior has a substantial impact on health conditions. Illness prevention through good health behavior is the most economical and effective health protection strategy. From an institutional standpoint, while endowment insurance systems have been widely recognized as an important means of promoting individual’s health and heightened by the current aging population situation, empirical analyses of whether and how endowment insurance affects health behavior are still limited. This paper uses China Family Panel Studies data from 2010 to 2020 to verify the relationship between the two. The results reveal that endowment insurance systems with different security levels have diametrically opposite effects on the behavior of the insured. Mediating effect analysis shows that the effect of basic endowment insurance is channeled by enhancing individuals’ awareness of health risks, while the effect of supplementary endowment insurance is achieved by guiding residents to devote more time to work. In addition, the impact of the endowment insurance system is heterogenous over age, economic conditions and place of residence. This study uncovers the novel relationship between endowment insurance and health behavior and adds to the theoretical understanding of health behavior from the perspectives of policy feedback and behavioral public management.