In recent years, China has made great efforts to resolve the health inequality caused by household registration restrictions, and the unequal allotment of health services faced by migrant workers has been effectively alleviated. However, inequality in health services may exist not only between migrant workers and local citizens but also among migrant workers. Thus, the unbalanced utilization of health services among migrant workers deserves attention. Using data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS), we examined the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and healthcare-seeking behavior through multivariate regression analysis. Then, from the perspective of SES, this study divided migrant workers into different groups to explore the characteristics of healthcare-seeking behavior in different groups. The results showed that SES had a significant relationship with healthcare-seeking behavior. Those with high SES were more likely to use high-quality health services. By subdividing the category of migrant workers, we found that the utilization of health services among migrant workers was unbalanced. Education and income had significant gradients in multiple measures of healthcare-seeking behavior, while occupation had no significant difference in the behavior. Migrant workers with higher income and education were more likely to use high-quality health services. Especially for migrant workers who had high incomes (above 15,000 CNY) or whose educational backgrounds were graduate level or above, their utilization of health resources was significantly higher than that of other groups. When designing particular policies to improve the healthcare-seeking behavior of different SES migrant workers, we should pay attention to the low-education groups and low-income groups. Policymakers can reduce the current health inequality of migrant workers by strengthening health education and increasing medical subsidies to achieve health equality among migrant workers and between migrant workers and local citizens.
Health education is considered to be an effective way to improve the healthcare-seeking behavior of migrant workers. This study examined the impact of health education on healthcare-seeking behavior of migrant workers in China and explored the differences in different health education methods. This paper used the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) to analyze the relationship between health education and healthcare-seeking behavior. Our results indicated that health education could significantly improve the healthcare-seeking behavior of migrant workers, but there was still ample space for improvement. From the perspective of different health education methods, lectures, public consultation, and online education were positively correlated to healthcare-seeking behavior, while publicity materials and bulletin boards were not. Although the effects of publicity materials and bulletins were limited, these two health education methods were still the most widely used. Our results emphasized the necessity of increasing investment in lectures, public consultation, online education, and other similar health education methods. This change in health education methods can play an effective role in the spread of health education to improve the healthcare-seeking behavior of migrant workers.
2 August 2022 in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Energy poverty (EPOV) is considered to have a significant impact on health and has become an essential issue on the policy agenda in most countries, especially those with rapid aging. Cognitive and mental health (CMH) for aging well is just as important a component as physical health, but the literature on the effect of EPOV on CMH is still rare. Using 2014–2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this study explores EPOV and its impacts on CMH among middle-aged and older adults. Six measures based on energy affordability are constructed to capture the state of EPOV. The results show that the proportion of middle-aged and older adults living in EPOV in China ranges from 24.3% to 27.8%, according to different measures. Applying a two-way FE model, the estimates show that overall, the impact of EPOV on CMH is significantly negative. Furthermore, physical health is an important channel through which EPOV affects CMH. Although EPOV has a significant adverse effect on the CMH of both middle-aged and older adults, it harms the latter more.
Farmers’ cooperatives play an important role in enabling small farmers to integrate into modern agriculture. Based on the survey data of 7200 farmers in four provinces of China, this paper uses the multi-dimensional poverty measurement method and the instrumental variable method to reveal the transmission mechanism and multi-dimensional poverty reduction effect of farmers’ cooperatives in deep poverty-stricken areas in China to realize joint agricultural empowerment through the supply chain. The results show that farmers’ cooperatives play an important role in enhancing small farmers’ financing, technology application, market sales, and rights decision-making. Every increase in the degree of interest connection between the two will help farmers reduce the multi-dimensional poverty level by 12.3%, and the mitigation effects on material poverty, ability poverty, and rights poverty are between 10% and 13%. Compared with agricultural cooperatives with weak organizational service capacity, cooperatives with high organizational service capacity have a more significant multi-dimensional poverty reduction effect on farmers, which leads to farmers obtaining financing and improving their ability and income. In addition, the difference in benefit coupling between agricultural cooperatives and farmers of different leading bodies also results in the heterogeneity of multi-dimensional poverty alleviation effects of farmers. To a certain extent, the supply chain is affected by the risk endowment of members, the supply chain’s poverty alleviation performance is affected by members’ supply chain’s poverty alleviation performance, and there is a certain risk transfer and “distribution failure”. Therefore, optimizing the benefit coupling structure and risk sharing mechanism between farmers’ cooperatives and farmers has become an important way to break the pattern of “the strong are always strong” and “distribution failure” for supply chain members and farmers.
In the context of digitization, the insurance industry’s value chain is undergoing significant shifts. However, the existing research on its comprehension and measurement remains relatively limited. This study constructs an index system for digital transformation in the insurance industry (DTII) on three components: digital infrastructure, digital platform, and digital applications. Utilizing data from 31 provinces in China, this study employs the entropy weight method, analytic hierarchy process method and minimum relative entropy method to measure the weights of indicators, empirically applying this index system. The results show that DTII in China experiences rapid advancement with an average annual growth rate of 20.46% from 2014 to 2020 and there exists strong regional convergence. In addition, the spatial agglomeration and spatial effects of DTII are mainly concentrated in the life insurance industry and the eastern region. This study provides an index system and empirical evidence for evaluating the DTII, providing policy insights for exploring the sustainable development path of the insurance industry in the digital era.