Income Dimensions Research Articles

Regional health differences - developing a socioeconomic deprivation index for Germany.

For Germany, regional differences for various health indicators, which are also associated with socioeconomic factors, have been documented. This article aims to develop a regional socioeconomic deprivation index for Germany that (1) can be used to analyse regional socioeconomic inequalities in health and (2) provides a basis for explaining regional health differences in Germany. The core data stem from the INKAR (indicators and maps on spatial and urban development in Germany and Europe) database compiled by Germany's Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development. Factor analysis is used for indexing and the weighting of indicators for the three dimensions of education, occupation and income. The German Index of Socioeconomic Deprivation (GISD) is generated at the levels of associations of municipalities, administrative districts and administrative regions for the years 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2012. Aggregate data and individual data from the German Health Update 2014/2015-EHIS (GEDA 2014/2015-EHIS) study are used to analyse associations between the index and selected health indicators. For around two thirds of the causes of death, the German Index of Socioeconomic Deprivation reveals significant socioeconomic inequalities at the level of Germany's administrative regions. At district level, life expectancy in the bottom fifth of districts presenting the highest levels of deprivation is, depending on the observation period, 1.3 years lower for women and 2.6 years lower for men in comparison to the upper fifth of districts presenting the lowest levels of deprivation. The index can explain 45.5% and 62.2% of regional differences in life expectancy for women and men, respectively. Moreover, the population in regions characterised by high levels of deprivation has significantly higher rates of smokers, engages less frequently in leisure-time physical activities and is more often obese. The German Index of Socioeconomic Deprivation illustrates regional socioeconomic differences at different spatial levels and contributes to explaining regional health differences. This index is intended for use in research as well as by federal and federal state health reporting systems and should enable access to new sources of data for investigating the links between social inequalities and health in Germany.

Multidimensional poverty and catastrophic health spending in the mountainous regions of Myanmar, Nepal and India

BackgroundEconomic burden to households due to out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) is large in many Asian countries. Though studies suggest increasing household poverty due to high OOPE in developing countries, studies on association of multidimensional poverty and household health spending is limited. This paper tests the hypothesis that the multidimensionally poor are more likely to incur catastrophic health spending cutting across countries.Data and methodsData from the Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment (PVA) Survey carried out by the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has been used in the analyses. The PVA survey was a comprehensive household survey that covered the mountainous regions of India, Nepal and Myanmar. A total of 2647 households from India, 2310 households in Nepal and 4290 households in Myanmar covered under the PVA survey. Poverty is measured in a multidimensional framework by including the dimensions of education, income and energy, water and sanitation using the Alkire and Foster method. Health shock is measured using the frequency of illness, family sickness and death of any family member in a reference period of one year. Catastrophic health expenditure is defined as 40% above the household’s capacity to pay.ResultsResults suggest that about three-fifths of the population in Myanmar, two-fifths of the population in Nepal and one-third of the population in India are multidimensionally poor. About 47% of the multidimensionally poor in India had incurred catastrophic health spending compared to 35% of the multidimensionally non-poor and the pattern was similar in both Nepal and Myanmar. The odds of incurring catastrophic health spending was 56% more among the multidimensionally poor than among the multidimensionally non-poor [95% CI: 1.35-1.76]. While health shocks to households are consistently significant predictors of catastrophic health spending cutting across country of residence, the educational attainment of the head of the household is not significant.ConclusionThe multidimensionally poor in the poorer regions are more likely to face health shocks and are less likely to afford professional health services. Increasing government spending on health and increasing households’ access to health insurance can reduce catastrophic health spending and multidimensional poverty.

Looking at Pro-Poor Growth from an Agricultural Perspective

Pro-poor growth has been identified as one of the most promising pathways to accelerate poverty reduction in developing countries. The diagnostic pro-poor growth toolbox has so far focused on the income dimension as well as key non-income achievements in education and health. This article contributes to the literature by expanding the toolbox with several new measures that take into account the extraordinary importance of agricultural productivity for poverty reduction in developing countries. We distinguish between land productivity and labor productivity and find that the poor identified by low incomes, poor education outcomes, low land productivity and low labor productivity overlap only to a small degree, suggesting that analyses of pro-poor growth from these different perspectives are complementary. The toolbox is then applied to three comparable household surveys from Rwanda (EICV data for the years 1999–2001, 2005–06, and 2010–11), a country that has experienced impressive economic growth since the genocide in the mid-1990s and that has undertaken considerable efforts to increase agricultural productivity and improve the population’s access to social services over the first decade of the 2000s. Our application shows that the enormous progress made in the income, education, and health dimension of well-being has been pro-poor according to most definitions of the concept. The new tools reveal that the land productivity-poor experienced pro-poor growth in the relative (and absolute) sense while the labor productivity-poor increased their labor productivity relatively (but not absolutely) faster than the labor productivity-rich even though the former dispose of considerably lower education levels.

Socio-economic development of fishers in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states in India

A study was conducted across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states among 647 fisher households comprising five major sectors viz., brackishwater, freshwater, reservoir and marine fisheries as well as procurement and marketing sectors to understand the level of socio-economic development of fishers. Fishers development index (FDI) was constructed based on health, income and literacy dimensions. Analysis of data indicated that the literacy level was highest among marine fishers (51.45%), followed by brackishwater aquaculture (45.61%) and fish procurement and marketing sector (36.26%). Fishers in coastal areas tend to have better access to education than the fishers of inland water bodies. Incidence of common diseases (annual frequency) was more in the brackishwater aquaculture relative to other sectors in the study region. The position of educational and health status of fishers warrants a strong need to improve the access of fishers to health related services for overall development. High income from the marine sector and a relatively higher weightage (37%) to the income dimension played a major role for its FDI score. Freshwater aquaculture took the top score in health, while reservoir fisheries ranked first in literacy. A multi-dimensional approach would enhance the income and employment generation of the fishers to match with the development of the rest in the society.

Who Benefits from Tax Expenditures? Incidence Based on Wealth

Legal scholars have long been interested in understanding who benefits from tax expenditures, with a particular interest in how tax expenditures contribute to inequality. Prior research has focused on the extent to which higher income households obtain larger tax breaks from tax expenditure provisions. Although household income and wealth are far from perfectly correlated, the distinction between income and wealth has been ignored in the context of tax expenditures. In this article, I first argue that the distributional consequences of a tax expenditure should be defined as the degree to which it widens the after-tax distribution of economic welfare, which incorporates both an income and wealth dimension. Next, I investigate whether households with higher wealth obtain larger tax breaks from the mortgage interest deduction. Using detailed information on income and wealth from the Survey of Consumer Finances, I find that tax breaks from the mortgage interest deduction are increasing in wealth for the wealthiest 10 percent of households. Combined with the evidence that higher income households obtain higher tax breaks from the mortgage interest deduction, the findings provide evidence that the mortgage interest deduction contributes to inequality more than previously thought.

The Dynamics of Disease in a Regulated Vertically Differentiated Health System

We build up a differential game to investigate the interplay between the quality of health care and the presence of an evolving disease in a duopoly where patients are heterogeneous along the income dimension. We study the Markov perfect equilibrium, and we identify the admissible parameter region wherein price regulation achieves the twofold objectives of ensuring cares to all patients and heal all of them.

The Dynamics of Disease in a Regulated Vertically Differentiated Health System

We build up a differential game to investigate the interplay between the quality of health care and the presence of an evolving disease in a duopoly where patients are heterogeneous along the income dimension. We prove unicity, stability and perfection of the open-loop Nash solution. Moreover, we identify the admissible parameter region wherein price regulation achieves the twofold objectives of ensuring cares to all patients and eradicating the disease.

Smartphone addiction among university students in the light of some variables

We explored the frequency and indices of smartphone addiction in a group of King Saud University students and investigated whether there were differences in smartphone addiction based on gender, social status, educational level, monthly income and hours of daily use. We developed a questionnaire probing smartphone addiction consisting of five dimensions: 1) overuse of smartphone, 2) the psychological-social dimension, 3) the health dimension, 4) preoccupation with smartphones, and 5) the technological dimension. After being validated, the questionnaire was administered to 416 students, both male and female, at King Saud University. Results revealed that addiction percentage among participants was 48%. The order of smartphone addiction indices were as follows: overuse of smartphone, the technological dimension, the psychological-social dimension, preoccupation with smartphones, and the health dimension. Significant gender differences were found in the degree of addiction on the whole questionnaire and all of its dimensions with the exception of the technological dimension in favor of males. Significant differences by social status were found in favor of the unmarried. Bachelor degree students were found to have the highest degree of addiction. Significant differences by hours of daily use were also detected in favor of participants using the smartphone for more than 4 h a day. As to the monthly income dimension, significant differences were found on the health dimension in favor of participants with lower monthly income.

الأبعاد الاجتماعية والاقتصادية للموظف

البحث الوظيفة العامة والتي تشرف عليها وتعدها الدولة خدمة لمواطنيها ، وللوظيفة عناصر وشروط يجب أن تتوفر لها من أجل قيامها بوظيفتها حتى تحقق أهدافها المحددة لها ، الحقوق التي يتحصل عليها الموظف مقابل الواجبات التي يقوم بها ، وأيضا الاعمال المحظورة على الموظف أن يقوم بها ، والتي تضر به وبمؤسسته ومجتمعه ، واذا قام بهذه الاعمال المحظورة فهناک إجراءات تأديبيه وعقوبات تطبق عليه حسب قوانين المؤسسة التي يعمل بها ، کذلک حرکة تنقل الموظف في صور النقل والندب والاعارة على حسب احتياجات المؤسسات فيما بينها. کما تناول البحث الابعاد الاجتماعية والاقتصادية للموظف ، وتمثلت الابعاد الاجتماعية في المستوى التعليمي ، المشاکل الاسرية ، العادات الاجتماعية ، الامن والسلامة ،وتمثلت الابعاد الاقتصادية في الدخل والحوافز التي يتحصل عليها الموظف من مؤسسته ، مظاهر الخلل الوظيفي داخل الوظيفة العامة والتي تؤثر على المؤسسة في تقديم خدماتها وهي ذو تأثير سلبي . Abstract The research of public office, which oversees them and prepared by the State Service for its citizens, and the function of the elements and conditions must have her for doing her job in order to achieve their objectives assigned to them, the rights obtained by the employee in exchange for duties performed by, and also acts banned on the employee to be carried out, which Bmassth and hurt him and his community, and if he banned this business, there are disciplinary procedures and penalties to be applied by the institution in which it operates laws, as well as the movement of an employee in the transportation and scars Photos and loan according to the needs of institutions among themselves. Also addressed the Find social and economic dimensions of the employee, and represented the social dimensions in the educational level, family problems, social customs, safety and security, and represented the economic dimensions of income and incentives obtained by the employee from his foundation, the manifestations of dysfunction within the public service and that affect the institution in the provision of services It has a negative impact.

Distribuição espacial da desigualdade de gênero no Brasil

The purpose of this article was to analyze how gender inequality is distributed all over the Brazil. To that end, it has been built the Multidimensional Gender Inequality Index (MGII), a synthetic index. The main findings underlined that inequality between men and women manifests itself at different degrees in the federal units, but it is determined by a variety of common factors. The asymmetries are observed, mainly, in the political, labor and income dimensions.

Role of Land Rent and Capital to Income Households in Indonesia

The purpose of the study to determine the effect of land rents and capital on incomes and wages in Indonesian households. Then determine whether the use of the dimensions of wages, as well as the dimensions of income in measuring the influence of capital and land rent-toincome households in Indonesia. This study uses the FD method (First Difference). The data used is panel data sourced from IFLS (Indonesian Family Life Survey) which IFLS-3 in the year 2000, and IFLS-4 in the year 2007. Research results show that an increase in the rent of agricultural land causes decreased significantly to income or household wage in Indonesia. The increase in capital causes a significant slowdown in total household income and wages Indonesia.

Well-being in the Czech Republic in an Aggregate Perspective

Abstract The article assesses well-being in the Czech Republic compared to other Visegrad countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Poland) and neighbouring Germany and Austria. By employing various approaches designed by several international organisations it takes an aggregate perspective to assess both the current well-being and its sustainability into the future. All employed indicators that relate to current well-being evaluate the well-being in the Czech Republic as moderate among the OECD countries. The results indicate that the position in well-being rankings improves with the growing number of dimensions or subjective factors included in the well-being measure, mainly due to the reduction in relative importance of income dimension and higher emphasis on the multidimensionality and complexity of well-being. In the case of sustainability, large differences can be identified in evaluation stemming from Happy Planet Index and Sustainable Society Index perspective. Although both of them agree on unfavourable situation as regards environmental sustainability in the Czech Republic, different accent on economic area alters the final result substantially. The analysis shows that for any well-being assessment, the choice of indicators is crucial and a large portion of caution is necessary when interpreting these.

Socioeconomic Health Disparities in Canadian Regions

Purpose:Numerous studies have estimated health disparities along socioeconomic dimensions using individual data from sample surveys. Disparities between communities or regions cannot be estimated without a consistent set of individual data across communities. This study uses data at the health region level to estimate the socioeconomic health disparitiesbetweenhealth regions in Canada.Methods:Tow measures of income and a measure of education are used for regional socioeconomic ranking along with several health outcomes such as life expectancies, mortality rates, perceived health and obesity. Weighted regressionanalysis is used to estimate the relative inequality index (RII) between Canadian health regions.Results:The findings of the study indicate the existence of health disparities between Canadian health regions along the three socioeconomic markers of average income, median household income and education in favor of regions with higher socioeconomic ranking on those markers. Disparities are more pronounced along the education and average income dimensions, however. Greater inequalities are observed for premature mortality, avoidable mortality and obesity, which are higher for women than men.Conclusion:There are health disparities between Canadian health regions along education and income dimensions. Such disparities signify the role of socioeconomic factors as important instruments in reducing health disparities.

Stability and variability in income position over time: exploring their role in self-rated health in Swedish survey data.

BackgroundThe adverse relationship between income and health is well documented, but less is known of how income trajectories, i.e. downward or upward trends in income, determine health. We therefore link longitudinal income information to cross-sectional data on self-rated health and conduct logistic regression models in order to investigate income trends over time and their relationship with health.MethodsThe data, with the exception of income information, are derived from the Swedish Level-of-Living Survey 2000. The information on income was drawn from the income register covering the period 1995 to 2000. We used an age-restricted sample of those 30–64 years of age, and generated a series of models accounting for average income position, lagged income position, income decrease and increase, and annual periods in specific income positions. The analysis was conducted for men and women separately.ResultsApart from the overall association between income and health, we found a similar pattern when including average and lagged income in the model. The analysis of length of time in a specific income position showed substantial sex differences in poor health. Income decrease was more strongly associated with men’s poor health, whereas income increase revealed only weak associations with self-rated health.ConclusionsIt was shown that income changes and the time dimension of income are important for self-rated health. Self-rated health responds to decreases in absolute income and lowered rank position in the income distribution to a greater extent than to income gains over time. Lagged lower income position and its associations with health suggest that socio-economic disadvantages accumulate over time.

Assessing the distributional impact of community forest income

Purpose – Emerging evidence revealed a high rate of dependence of marginal people on forest resources in developing countries for both subsistence use and cash income. The purpose of this paper is to examine the rural livelihoods welfare dimensions of community forest income in south-western Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach – Forest activities and income pattern data were collected from 160 rural households’ selected using multistage sampling approach. Descriptive statistics and Gini decomposition technique were used to analyse the data. Findings – The result shows that forest income accounts for about 38.2 per cent of total household income and was the first ranked source of income in the study area. The Gini decomposition analysis showed that access to forest income is income inequality reducing in the study area. The study findings suggests that household welfare in rural Nigeria could be improved through policies and programmes that can stimulate sustainable access to forest resources and assist households to earn income from alternative sources such as agriculture. Originality/value – The result of the study helped provide information on the uses and benefits of community forests as it affects the well-being of rural people. Also, it provides the benchmark for policy makers, government agencies and NGO's involved in rural livelihood outcome of forest communities.

Farmers' perceived risks of climate change and influencing factors: a study in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.

Many countries are confronting climate change that threatens agricultural production and farmers' lives. Farmers' perceived risks of climate change and factors influencing those perceived risks are critical to their adaptive behavior and well-planned adaptation strategies. However, there is limited understanding of these issues. In this paper, we attempt to quantitatively measure farmers' perceived risks of climate change and explore the influences of risk experience, information, belief in climate change, and trust in public adaptation to those perceived risks. Data are from structured interviews with 598 farmers in the Mekong Delta. The study shows that perceived risks to production, physical health, and income dimensions receive greater priority while farmers pay less attention to risks to happiness and social relationships. Experiences of the events that can be attributed to climate change increase farmers' perceived risks. Information variables can increase or decrease perceived risks, depending on the sources of information. Farmers who believe that climate change is actually happening and influencing their family's lives, perceive higher risks in most dimensions. Farmers who think that climate change is not their concern but the government's, perceive lower risks to physical health, finance, and production. As to trust in public adaptation, farmers who believe that public adaptive measures are well co-ordinated, perceive lower risks to production and psychology. Interestingly, those who believe that the disaster warning system is working well, perceive higher risks to finance, production, and social relationships. Further attention is suggested for the quality, timing, and channels of information about climate change and adaptation.

Multidimensional Inequality in South Korea: An Empirical Analysis

The objective of this study is to review the theoretical limitations of single dimensional approaches for measuring inequality and to prove the effectiveness and practicality of the concept of “multidimensional inequality” by analyzing the inequality embedded in Korean society. This study constitutes nine dimensions of inequality (income, education, health, employment, social capital, leisure, work-family reconciliation, housing, and social security) and analyzes inequality through the lens of each dimension by using data from of the first to fifth wave of the Korea Welfare Panel Study. The findings show a high degree of correlation among the dimensions of income, education, health, and social capital. However, work-family reconciliation and housing have a relatively low correlation with income and the other dimensions. Second, multidimensional disparities were found between the groups of gender, age, and region. In conclusion, this study found a high degree of overlap between the concepts of income-oriented inequalities and the multidimensional inequality approach. By capturing the notions of the multidimensional disparities that exist in each of the different groups, this study confirmed the effectiveness of multidimensional inequality as a useful concept for informing the creation of social policy intervention to alleviate inequality.

Using Modified Similarity Multiple criteria Decision Making technique to rank countries in terms of Human Development Index

Purpose : Human Development Index (HDI) reported annually by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is apopular measure of human well-being. The purposeof this study is to propose a Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique named Modified Similarity technique for ranking countries based on multi criteria HDI. Design/methodology/approach: In Human Development Reports (HDRs), the HDI for each country isfirst calculated from the average of the health, education and income dimension indices with equally allocatedweight. Then the countries are ranked based on this index. Regarding the criticisms the method ofcalculating the HDI has received, this study usesModified Similarity Multi Criteria Decision Making methodfor ranking countries based on multi criteriaHDI, as an alternative method to the average method, which is being used in annually reported HDRs. Findings: We used the four HD indices mentioned in the 2010 and 2011 HDRs to rank 187 countries which have been investigated in the 2011 HDR. The results of ranking countries by the Modified Similarity technique were somewhat different from the 2011 HDR ranking. Originality/value: Some of the HDI criticisms are related to the method of calculating the index in the form of computing theaverage of the three health, education and income dimension indices with equally allocated weight. in an attempt to eliminatesome of the weaknesses associated with the index, this study uses Similarity technique, as an alternative to the average method of ranking countries in terms of humandevelopment. In addition due to some discrepancies associated with the Similarity technique introduced by Deng (2007), a Modified Similarity technique is discussed.

A macro assessment of China effects on Malaysian exports and trade balances

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on the impact of China's export expansion on Malaysian monthly trading with to her 12 major trading partners over the liberalization era. Design/methodology/approach – The analytical framework comprises of both the export and trade balance models. Unit root and cointegration tests with break and error correction modeling are employed in the analyses. Findings – Regime shifts are evident in the long run where structural break(s) found mostly coincides with the Asia crisis and China's accession into WTO. While the income effects are more apparent in most cases, the real exchanges are rather insignificant and incorrectly signed for Malaysian bilateral trading. Besides, the trade balance estimation is generally more consistent that the Chinese exports have exhibited complementary effects in the long-run, mainly for advanced export destination such as Australia, Germany, Japan, the UK and the USA. On the whole, there is insufficient evidence to support the “PRC competitive threat”. Practical implications – The empirical evidence disfavors currency devaluation for current account correction and reveals that the fear for China effect might be over-projected. Closer regional collaboration and trade integration between the two nations are well expected. Originality/value – The paper assesses the China's crowding out effect and magnitudes of Malaysian export and trade balance elasticities with model specifications that consider structural breaks. The paper also assesses the macro dimension of income and real exchanges effects.

Multi-dimensional income inequality in Pakistan

Inequality along with poverty has been a serious challenge for most of the developing countries. There have been several historical, political, social and economic dimensions of the inequalities. The present study provides a detailed analysis of various income dimensions of inequality at national and provincial level in Pakistan. This paper also provides a detailed analysis of the causes and consequences of these inequalities. The analysis shows that the gaps between haves and have-nots is widening. The distributional inequality has not been given much significance in Pakistan and the distributional policy measures like direct taxes have been weak. As a result, the direct tax to GDP ratio could not be increased over 10% in the country. The study finds that income inequalities have increased during 2001 to 2008. As in 2001-02, GINI coefficient was calculated as 0.27 and in 2007–08, it reached to 0.29. It has also been observed that inequality is highest in Sindh followed by Punjab, Khyber Paktunkawa (KPK) and Baluchistan provinces.