Health insurance and the rise of women: Evidence from the new cooperative medical scheme

• Main Author: BAI, Xingyu
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2024
• Subjects: informal parental care; public health insurance; labor supply; gender disparity; Health Economics
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/621; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/etd_coll/article/1619/viewcontent/thesis.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Females are traditionally viewed as the primary providers of informal parental care in China, especially in rural areas. We investigate whether health insurance coverage in rural China, the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS), can unleash more female labor force participation by reducing the burden of informal parental care. Employing a heterogeneity-robust difference-in-differences estimation, we find that the NCMS has a significant positive impact on female labor supply, primarily in non-farm occupations. In contrast, we observe no significant changes in male labor supply. We explore the mechanism by showing that the NCMS significantly decreases both the provision and demand for parental care by females. Our findings illuminate the importance of public health insurance in developing countries, highlighting its potential to stimulate labor supply, mitigate gender disparities in the labor market, and empower women with more bargaining power within households.