Modelling dynamic choice: Private health insurance in Australia, CHERE Research Report 24
This study investigates the role of dynamic, discrete choice modelling in the context of private hospital insurance in Australia. This is achieved with the use of a unique panel data set of young Australian women ? The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women?s Health (or ALSWH). Very few (if any) private health insurance studies in Australia have used panel data due to the limited availability of longitudinal data sets. Yet panel data allows two important innovations ? it allows a researcher to control for unobserved heterogeneity across individuals and facilitates dynamic modelling that would otherwise require long time series data. Both these innovations are a feature of the dynamic, random effects probit model I propose here. Using the ALSWH data set I find that the choice to purchase private hospital insurance is strongly determined by income, access to hospitals and inertia in choice. I also find family formation, pregnancy, education, exercise levels and country of birth to be significant drivers of choice. Interestingly, I find little evidence of adverse selection in this sample of young women, as those more likely to be insured have higher self-reported health and few chronic conditions. Overall, I find the dynamic specification with state dependence effects provides an important insight into consumer behaviour, with young women exhibiting statistically and economically large amounts of inertia in choice. Women who were in cover in 1996 or 2000 were more likely to be covered in 2003. Conversely, women without cover were unlikely to move into cover despite a wide range of Australian Government incentives. As policy makers consider the future of private health care, researchers must consider dynamic studies as way to fully gauge consumer behaviour.
Family formation and the demand for health insurance.
We study how demand for health insurance responds to family formation using a unique panel of young Australian women. Our data allow us to simultaneously control for the influence of state dependence and unobserved heterogeneity and detailed information on children and child aspirations. We find evidence that women purchase insurance in preparation for pregnancy but then transition out of insurance once they have finished family building. Children have a large, negative impact on demand for insurance, although this effect is smaller for those on higher incomes. We also find that state dependence has a large impact on insurance demand. Our results are robust to a variety of alternative modelling strategies.
An assessment of the Impact of Devolution on Women Empowerment in Nakuru County
-Women have been grossly marginalized in organs of decision-making and governance structures. The Constitution of Kenya has sought to bridge this gap by providing both women and men the right to equal treatment, including the right to equal opportunities in political, economic, cultural and social spheres. However, gender equality has not been achieved and women are still lagging in terms of decision making processes. The main objective of the study was to detemine the impact of devolution on women empowerment in Nakuru County. The study found that substantive women representation, development of programs and accessibility of services had a positive effect on the women empowerment in Nakuru County. The study also found out that increased accessibility of Services by women influenced women empowerment, this study also concludes that the introduction of development programs had the greatest impact on women empowerment in Nakuru County. The study recommends that more programs targeting women should be introduced as these have the greatest impact on women empowerment. The findings may be used to make conclusions and recommendations.