The Importance of Health and Social Protection Assets in the Economic Welfare of Households in Mexico

Abstract

This paper seeks determines how the possession of health and social protection assets affects the probability of a household belonging to a given quintile of a proposed asset ownership index. An ordered logistic regression model was constructed. As a dependent variable, the quintile of each household was used according to the index. This research is based on 48 explanatory variables from the 2020 National Income and Expenses Survey. It confirms that health and social protection assets are relevant in the location of households in a quintile according to its socioeconomic condition. Estimated marginal effects and predictions for every quintile, show that the effect of the assets varies according to the quintile. Ownership of specific assets increase the likelihood of belonging to the higher quintiles. The possession of a voluntary pension fund is the most relevant asset. The empirical results obtained may contribute to design more efficient inequality-reducing public policies by promoting its acquisition and thereby encouraging social mobility. Main limitations of this research are related with the small number of health and social-protection related variables in the survey.

Keywords

• social mobility, health and social protection, income inequality, asset index, econometric methods