Socio-economic Inequality and Healthcare Costs Over the Life Course

Thomas Leoni, Martin Spielauer, Peter Reschenhofer, Thomas Horvath

This study examines the social differences in the use of the health care system by analyzing the health care costs of different educational groups over the course of a lifetime. In a first step, average age cost profiles are determined for men and women after the highest level of education. In a second step, the health care costs of individual cohorts and overall are estimated in a dynamic microsimulation, taking into account changes in life expectancy and the composition of the Austrian population by age and education. The results confirm that higher education in most stages of life is on average associated with better health and lower health care costs. However, due to the positive correlation between education and life expectancy, higher education also has an opposite cost effect. The overall effect shows partly different patterns for men and women. Overall, the improvement of the educational structure in the population has had a moderately dampening effect on the cost dynamics in the health care system, which partly offset the rising costs resulting from higher life expectancy.

Publications:

  • Horvath Thomas, Thomas Leoni, Peter Reschenhofer, Martin Spielauer (2023) Socio-economic Inequality and Healthcare Costs Over the Life Course – A Dynamic Microsimulation Approach - Public Health, (219), pp.124-130, [LINK]

  • Leoni, Thomas, Martin Spielauer, Peter Reschenhofer (2020) Soziale Unterschiede, Lebenserwartung und Gesundheitsausgaben im Lebensverlauf (Social Differences, Life Expectancy And Health Expenditures Over The Life Course) Study commissioned by the Main Association of Austrian Social Insurance Institutions [PDF]



  • Organization Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO)

  • Funding: This contribution was funded by the Main Association of Austrian Social Insurance Institutions.