A Comparison of Health Care in Canada and the US - The Case of Pap Smears

Abstract

This study compares the Canadian and US health care systems on the provision of Pap smears for women. Probit estimates show that American women are more likely to receive the screening. A question arises as to whether differences in the estimated probability of the Pap smear are the result of differences in the demographics between Canadian and American women or differences in the estimated coefficients. A Blinder/Oaxaca type decomposition yields estimates of the influence of each. The decomposition shows that the differences between the Canadian and US women mostly occur because of differences in coefficients and not the distributions. One coefficient driving this difference is age. Older Canadian women have a lower average predicted probability of a Pap smear.