Justifying social insurance

At the CISS we are doing a study regarding the importance of social insurance to protect household consumption against the risk of death, diseases and accidents, disability, aging and unemployment (see previous note). In this study we use the Encuesta Nacional del Nivel de Vida de los Hogares (ENNVIH), a panel survey of Mexican households conducted in 2002 and 2006. In a first stage we are studying the effect of illness on consumption. To measure change in health status we used two different measures: self-reported illness symptoms (recorded as 1 or 0) and limitations in the physical capacity to perform activities of daily living (ADL Index). This index refers to activities such as whether the person can carry a heavy load for 20 meters, walk for 5 kilometers, climb stairs, dress herself, shower, among others; takes a value of 1 if the individual can perform all ADLs without difficulty.

The following table shows the average values obtained from the survey for diseases suffered in within the previous month with respect to the date of the survey, the chronic diseases that are more than a month and the ADL index for 2002 and 2006.

Two interesting facts can be observed: many household heads report having a health problem and indeed one third is chronic. However, it appears that this does not limit their activities of daily living. In following notes we will be posting the progress of the research.