Inequality of opportunities in health in France: a first pass

This article analyses the role played by childhood circumstances, especially social and family background in explaining health status among older adults. We explore the hypothesis of an intergenerational transmission of health inequalities using the French part of SHARE. As the impact of both social background and parents' health on health status in adulthood represents circumstances independent of individual responsibility, this study allows us testing the existence in France of inequalities of opportunity in health related to family and social background. Empirically, our study relies on tests of stochastic dominance at first order and multivariate regressions, supplemented by a counterfactual analysis to evaluate the long‐lasting impact of childhood conditions on inequality in health. Allocating the best circumstances in both parents' socioeconomic status and parents' health reduces inequality in health by an impressive 57% using the Gini coefficient. The mother's social status has a direct effect on the health of her offspring. By contrast, the effect on descendant's health from their father's social status is indirect only, which goes through the descendant's social status as an adult. There is also a strong effect of the father vital status on health in adulthood, revealing a selection effect. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.