Effects of Socioeconomic Status on the Health Status of Young to Middle-aged Women: Dynamic Panel Data Analysis

Abstract

By using panel data from Japanese young women (age, 20s to 40s) from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers 2003-2008 (JPSC), this paper analyses how social status affects self-reported health status. Because women in the 20s-40s age range play multiple roles such as workers, wives, mothers and caregivers, this paper takes such dynamic changes in work and health status into consideration by employing dynamic panel probit models to obtain a consistent estimator following Woolridge. The results proved that health status in a previous period, years of education, being homemakers, and being employed were significant predictors of current health status.