Arbeitspapier
The Effect of a Ban on Gender-Based Pricing on Risk Selection in the German Health Insurance Market
Starting from December 2012, insurers in the European Union were prohibited from charging gender-discriminatory prices. We examine the effect of this unisex mandate on risk segmentation in the German health insurance market. While gender used to be a pricing factor in Germany's private health insurance (PHI) sector, it was never used as a pricing factor in the social health insurance (SHI) sector. The unisex mandate makes PHI relatively more attractive for women and less attractive for men. Based on data from the SOEP we analyze how the unisex mandate affects the difference between women and men in switching rates between SHI and PHI. We find that the unisex mandate increases the probability of switching from SHI to PHI for women relative to men. This effect is strongest for self-employed individuals and mini-jobbers. On the other hand, the unisex mandate had no effect on the gender difference in switching rates from PHI to SHI. Because women have on average higher health care expenditures than men, our results imply a reduction of advantageous selection into PHI. Our results demonstrate that regulatory measures such as the unisex mandate can reduce risk selection between public and private health insurance sectors.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 11988
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
Health Insurance, Public and Private
Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
National Government Expenditures and Health
- Subject
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unisex mandate
public and private health insurance
risk selection
Germany
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
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Huang, Shan
Salm, Martin
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
- (where)
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Bonn
- (when)
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2018
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Huang, Shan
- Salm, Martin
- Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Time of origin
- 2018
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