Health Inequality by Race and Ethnicity
Understanding health inequality requires properly measuring health. A commonly used measure is “self-reported” health. A more recent one is “frailty,” which corresponds to the fraction of one’s possible health deficits. We evaluate the extent to which they are good measures of latent health by comparing their ability to predict key economic outcomes by race, ethnicity and gender. We find that both health measures are highly predictive of the probability of becoming a Disability Insurance or Social Security retirement benefits recipient, entering or living in a nursing home, and dying. Because frailty is somewhat more predictive and has a quantitative interpretation, we use it to measure to what extent health is unequally distributed and affects economic outcomes. Frailty reveals huge health inequality. At age 51, Black men have, on average, the frailty of White men who are 13 years older, and Black women have the frailty of White women who are 18 years older. We also find that frailty has large effects on economic outcomes. For example, one additional health deficit increases the probability of dying by 0.8 and 0.6 percentage points for men and women, respectively.
Related
More from NBER
In addition to working papers, the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals — the NBER Reporter, the NBER Digest, the Bulletin on Retirement and Disability, the Bulletin on Health, and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship — as well as online conference reports, video lectures, and interviews.
