The Effect of Occurrence of Catastrophic Health Expenditure on Child Problem Behavior

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that economic hardship negatively affects children’s health by reducing investment in children. Therefore, this study analyzes the impact of catastrophic health expenditure, one type of economic hardship, on children’s problem behaviors in households using data from the 4th (2009), 7th, 10th, 13th, and 16th waves of the Korea Welfare Panel Study. The population was children under the age of 18. The threshold of catastrophic health expenditure was set at 10%, and child problem behavior was measured using the K-CBCL indicator. The results showed that catastrophic health expenditures had a negative effect on delinquency among five different problem behaviors. When the subgroup was divided by parental education level, delinquency and some problem behaviors were negatively affected by catastrophic health expenditure only when parents had a low level of education. Through these results, this study demonstrated that household financial strain, such as catastrophic health expenditures, adversely affects children's mental health and related problem behaviors. Furthermore, this study found that problem behaviors were more prevalent among children whose parents were less educated, raising the possibility that the occurrence of catastrophic health expenditures may lead to intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status in the long run. This study is significant in that it provides a policy rationale for supporting households facing catastrophic health expenditures.