Child Mortality under Chinese Reforms

Abstract

This paper looks for the impact of the Chinese economic reforms on its health performance. From an appropriate health outcomes indicator, it appears that while still being one of the most performing countries, China’s relative advance decreased during the reforms. Consistent with the fact that the health system had to rely more and more on private expenditures, we find an increasing impact of income on infant survival. We also show that relative prices matter for infant survival: for a given increase of income per capita, a currency real depreciation lowers survival. Focusing on poverty reduction still seems to be in China the main way to significantly improve infant survival.China., policy reforms, Infant mortality rate, Child mortality rate