Gender Difference in the Use of Hospitalization Services in Rural China - Evidence from Sichuan Province

Abstract

Gender differences in health use have been documented widely while results differ between studies and countries. We try to explore the differences between gender in rural China employing 669, 000 hospitalization data of rural counties of Sichuan province in 2013. Descriptive statistics were employed to calculate the sums, means and proportions of the admission, length of stay and expenditures of hospitalization. The Chi-square test was used to calculate differences between proportions and the t test was used to test differences between means. Our results suggested that women had more hospital utilization than men while men had higher duration and expenditures of hospitalization. More female were admitted to hospital than male across all age. 25-34 year is a key age range where female/male admission ratio was highest (2.1:1) and male had a longest duration (11.6 days) in all life. Male had higher expenses of hospital than female in all age except infancy and the gap in expenses between genders is rare before adult. The differences of gender in health use does exist and policies and economic support should be taken to rural residents.