United in Diversity: The Evolution of Between and within Country Health Inequalities Across Europe

One of the principal aims of the European integration process is to raise and harmonize living conditions within Europe. To achieve this goal, the European Union (EU) intends to increase economic growth and competition through the promotion of free circulation of persons, services, goods, and capital. One of the main tools to increase this free circulation used by the EU is the establishment of Europe-wide regulations for safety at work, social protection as well as health services and delivery. Because the living as well as working conditions between countries have become more similar over time, we hypothesize that over time also the country in which an individual lives has become a less important determinant of health status. At the same time, increasing economic integration and market pressure over time may have increased the importance of socio-economic status in determining individual’s health status. The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the changing relationship between health inequalities within as well as between European countries over time using a range of decomposition techniques. For this purpose we draw on individual level survey data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) as well as the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for the years 1994-2012.