New Approaches to Estimating the Child Health - Parental Income Relationship

This paper exploits two new alternative approaches to estimate the child health-parental income gradient, using both a threshold model and a more parsimonious random parameters model, applied to the Health Survey for England data 2008-2012. We build on previous research and test the ap­propriateness of the usual standard age categories (0-3, 4-8, 9-12 and 13-17) exploited in the literature and for policy intervention. Our threshold method estimates different age categories and higher income gradient for children aged between 6 and 8 years old. We further extend our analysis to allow for cohort effects. \Ve find that a higher income is required to improve young children's health aged 0-2 post 2010. We discuss the relevant reasons and policy impli­cations - most notably that there are socioeconomic child health inequalities exasperated by the recent recession and inequity in the distribution of health interventions towards those most in financial need.