Socioeconomic disparities in self-rated health in two East Asian countries: Comparative study between Japan and Korea

Although Japan and South Korea share a number of commonalities, social security systems are very different. We opt to compare socioeconomic disparities in self-rated health between these two countries. The analytic sample included those aged 20 years and older from the nationally representative surveys in Japan (Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions) and South Korea (Korean Community Health Survey). As socioeconomic status, we used income (quintiles of equivalized annual household income) and education (five categories). We measured socioeconomic inequalities using two indices; the Slope Index of Inequality (SII) and the Relative Index of Inequality (RII), in each age group for each country. In Japan, we found relatively little evidence of socioeconomic inequalities in self-rated health over the life course, on either the absolute or relative scale. In Korea, the absolute inequality assessed by SII of self-rated poor health was higher in middle and old age groups compared to other age groups, while relative inequality measured by RII was significantly higher in younger ages. In Japan with more generous welfare system to the older generations, health inequality was relatively lower compared to Korea. The gaps in health status for Korean people suggest where social policy might direct their efforts in the future - (a) reducing inequalities in working-age people by addressing the gap between standard workers & non-standard workers; and (b) improving the financial conditions of older people by shoring up the social security system.