Abstract

In the present paper, we study the effects of the recent economic crisis on the changes in self-assessed health in one of the most severely affected EU economies –  ?Ireland. We examine the compositional changes in an array of demographic and socio-economic factors, such as education, income and financial strain between 2008 and 2013. We apply a generalised Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition approach for a binary dependent variable proposed by Fairlie (1999, 2005). We find that financial strain has been associated with the largest increase in poor health on average as well as for different population sub-groups. A somewhat smaller but significant effect was observed for the changes in the economic activity status. The increased levels of education have had a significant positive effect, preventing from further increases in poor health. Individuals with higher income and educational attainment were affected more severely, which has led to a reduction in socio-economic health inequalities.