Decomposing socioeconomic inequalities in depressive symptoms among the elderly in China

BMC Public Health

Table 4 Decomposition analysis of concentration index in depressive symptoms among elderly

Variable	Elasticity	C_k	Absolute contribution to C	Percentage contribution to C
Age
60–64	Ref
65–74	−0.046	−0.014	0.001	−1.02
≥ 75	−0.038	−0.087	0.003	−5.11
Sex
Men	Ref
Women	0.199	−0.013	−0.003	4.06
Living arrangement
Living alone	0.023	0.076	0.002	−2.65
Living with their spouse	−0.010	0.080	−0.001	1.23
Other arrangement	Ref
Income	−0.566	0.059	−0.033	51.65
Education
Illiterate	0.069	−0.131	−0.009	13.93
Capable of reading or writing	0.058	−0.052	−0.003	4.65
Elementary school	0.021	0.003	0.000	−0.11
Middle school and above	Ref
Working status
Yes	−0.057	−0.057	0.003	−5.04
No	Ref
Location
Urban-eastern	Ref
Rural-eastern	0.059	−0.134	−0.008	12.19
Urban-central	0.027	0.143	0.004	−6.02
Rural-central	0.082	−0.124	−0.010	15.88
Urban-west	0.037	0.156	0.006	−8.98
Rural-west	0.170	−0.089	−0.015	23.34
Social activity	−0.073	0.128	−0.009	14.48
Smoking
Yes	0.048	0.002	0.000	−0.17
No	Ref
Physical disabilities
Yes	0.024	−0.052	−0.001	1.93
No	Ref
Brain damage
Yes	0.021	0.008	0.000	−0.27
No	Ref
Vision problems
Yes	0.031	−0.035	−0.001	1.70
No	Ref
Hearing problems
Yes	0.012	−0.029	0.000	0.55
No	Ref
Residual (unexplained)			−0.075	−16.25

Note: C_k concentration index of explanatory variables, C concentration index of independent variable, Ref reference group

ISSN: 1471-2458