Statistical Properties of Generalized Gini Coefficient with Application to Health Inequality Measurement

• Published in: Social indicators research Vol. 87; no. 2; pp. 249 - 258
• Main Authors: Lai, Dejian, Huang, Jin, Risser, Jan M., Kapadia, Asha S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer 01-06-2008; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: China; Comparative Analysis; Expected values; Foreign Countries; Gini coefficient; Gini index; Health; Health care inequality; Health Conditions; Health disparities; Histograms; History, theory and methodology; Human Geography; Hypothesis testing; Income distribution; Individual Differences; Inequality; Inferences; Life expectancy; Measurement Techniques; Methodology; Microeconomics; Monte Carlo Methods; Monte Carlo simulation; Public Health; Quality of Life Research; Random variables; Scientific Concepts; Social Class; Social Indicators; Social Inequality; Social research; Social Sciences; Sociology; Sociology of health and medicine; Statistical analysis; Statistical discrepancies; Statistical properties; Statistical Significance; Statistical variance; Studies; United States; United States of America; United States; China; United States > US; Statistical analysis; Simulation; Health inequality; Gini coefficient; Measurement; Statistical Model; Health; Inequality
• ISSN: 0303-8300; 1573-0921
• DOI: 10.1007/s11205-007-9170-y

In this article, we report statistical properties of two classes of generalized Gini coefficients (G1 and G2). The theoretical results were assessed via Monte Carlo simulations. Further, we used G1 and G2 on life expectancy to measure health inequalities among the provinces of China and the states of the United States. For China, the results indicated that there was statistically significant health inequality by both G1 and G2. However, for the US, the results showed that there was significant health inequality by G1 but no statistical significance was found in health inequality by G2. Overall, from our study, China has higher health inequality than the United States.