Reports on Gender and Health from Harvard University Provide New Insights (How social policy contributes to the distribution of population health:…

Investment Weekly News

Reports on Gender and Health from Harvard University Provide New Insights (How social policy contributes to the distribution of population health: the case of gender health equity)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Investment Weekly News -- Investigators publish new report on Gender and Health. According to news originating from Cambridge, Massachusetts, by VerticalNews correspondents, research stated, "In this study we aimed to analyze gender health equity as a case of how social policy contributes to population health. We analyzed three sets of social-investment policies implemented in Europe and previously hypothesized to reduce gender inequity in labor market outcomes: childcare; active labor market programs; and long-term care."

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Harvard University, "We use 12 indicators of social-investment policies from the OECD Social Expenditure Database, the OECD Family Database, and the Social Policy Indicators' Parental Leave Benefit Dataset. We draw outcome data from the 2015 Global Burden of Disease for years lived with disability and all-cause mortality among men and women ages 25-54 for 18 European nations over the 1995-2010 period. We estimate 12 linear regression models each for mortality and morbidity (i.e. years lived with disability), one per social-investment indicator. All models use country fixed-effects and cluster-robust standard errors. For years lived with disability, women benefit more from social investment for most indicators. The only exception is the percentage of young children in publicly funded childcare or schooling, which equally benefits men. For all-cause mortality, men benefit more or equally from social investment for most indicators, while women benefit more from government spending on direct job creation through civil employment. Social policy contributes to the distribution of population health. Social-investment advocates argue such policies in particular enhance economic gender equity."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "Our results show that these polices have ambiguous effects on gender health equity and even differential improvements among men for some outcomes."

For more information on this research see: How social policy contributes to the distribution of population health: the case of gender health equity. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 2017;():1403494817715954. (Sage Publications - www.sagepub.com/; Scandinavian Journal of Public Health - sjp.sagepub.com)

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from J. Beckfield, 1 Dept. of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States. Additional authors for this research include K.A. Morris and C. Bambra.

Keywords for this news article include: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, Gender Health, Women's Health, Gender and Health, Finance and Investment, North and Central America.