Workshop on Human Potential (Christine Percheski, Northwestern University)

Christine Percheski, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, will present, "Family Structure, Health Insurance, and Children's Well-being in the U.S."

 

Abstract: The contemporary health insurance system in the United States often leads to non-uniform health insurance coverage within families. With Sharon Bzostek (Rutgers University), I have been examining how the misalignment of insurance eligibility rules and demographic realities for families with children result in complicated insurance coverage patterns and what this mean for children’s well-being. Using National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data, we are investigating four interrelated questions: 1) How does children’s exposure to uninsured family members differ by family structure? 2) What is the prevalence of non-uniform health insurance coverage among siblings, and what characteristics are associated with such coverage patterns? 3) Do health care utilization patterns of children in sibships with mixed health insurance differ from children in sibships with uniform coverage? 4) Can we exploit differences in health insurance within families to estimate the causal effect of public health insurance? Our findings thus far suggest that children in non-traditional family structures and in immigrant families are more likely to live with uninsured family members and to have a different type of insurance than their siblings. We find evidence that mixed insurance coverage within families is associated with distinct health care utilization patterns and that expanding public insurance for children would lead to better health care access and lower family expenditures on health.

   

Bio: Sociologist Christine Percheski is focused on the intersection of the fields of family demography, social inequality, and public policy with a particular focus on American women and families with children. Using demographic and other quantitative methods, Christine Percheski studies how recent and ongoing changes in family life are related to changing patterns of inequality in the United States. Her past work has investigated whether becoming a father affects employment differently for married and unmarried men, as well as how the employment patterns of new mothers vary by their partnership status. In another project, she examined how the “child penalty” on women's employment has changed across birth cohorts of women in professional occupations.

Percheski received her PhD in Sociology at Princeton in 2008 and was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at Harvard University from 2008-2010. Her research has been published in such journals as the American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Sociology, and Journal of Marriage and Family.