Empirical Essays on Health Inequalities

People’s capability to flourish as human beings critically hinges on their health status. For this reason, some of the most influential scholars of our time consider health inequalities as one of the most worrying types of inequalities in our society. Although health inequalities have been a priority of many governmental and international bodies’ agendas since the 1990s, they persist and the urgency of their reduction is now reiterated by the Sustainable Development Goals agenda. To reduce health inequalities, it is essential to gain a better knowledge about them, including their identification as well as their determinants and evolution. From a policy perspective, it is also fundamental to understand their aftermaths. This doctoral thesis is a collection of three empirical essays that contribute to the understanding of drivers and consequences of health inequalities. The first essay analyses factors that contribute to differences in physical and mental health between Italian natives and immigrants and among immigrants themselves by focusing on the entire distribution of health. The second essay presents a gender analysis of the influence of the Great Recession on the distribution of mental health in Italy. The third essay estimates the lasting effect of poor early childhood health on later educational achievements in Indonesia, shedding light on the period that matters most for child development.