The Private Health Consumption in Russia within the Lifecycle. Is There an Evidence of Growth for Older Ages?

Vladimir Kozlov , Leibniz-Institut für Ost- und Südost Europa Forschung

The main research questions of the current paper are the causes for the growth of the private health consumption in Russia within the lifecycle based on the National transfer accounts for this country. After the NTA balance construction for 2013 we see among the main features of the Russian age profiles relatively low consumption at the older ages (especially in absolute but also in per capita figures) in comparison with the other developed countries. However after the analysis of the dynamics of the indicators using the same methodology we found that the underconsumption of the private healthcare services was changed in recent years (2016 and 2017), and the Russian profile moves closer to the developing countries. Additionally, the private health consumption was the only aggregated indicator demonstrating the significant changes within the contemporary Russian economic history (all the other profiles remain stable). Also it is worth to mention that the life expectancy in Russia was growing despite of the crisis and the lack of the additional public finance. So this growth could be partly explained by the private consumption. In this article we investigate whether the result is not a statistical and explain the main drivers of it. We also look at the possible cohort effect for explanation (the aging of the less risky cohorts with healthier behavior patterns).

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 Presented in Session P2. Poster Session Ageing, Health and Mortality