Demand of Self-Medication by the Elderly Indonesians

Indonesia is expected to face rapid population aging in the near future, yet most the expected elderly population are still vulnerable to poverty. In order to economically survive in the prolonging old-age life , health is vital for the elderly. One popular method of maintaining health is to do self-medication. This paper tries to analyze the nature of self-medication for the elderly Indonesians, using inferential and empirical method. The inferential method uses observations of IFLS 2007 data for respondents aged 45 years above, regressed by Heckman selection bias (two-step) model. Using several controlling variables, the regression result indicates self-medication is almost perfectly inelastic for the elderly Indonesians. And an empirical result done in 2012 showed that self-medication is favorable for elderly Indonesians, yet an increase in income will lead elderly Indonesians to change the most favored medication. The results indicate that self-medication is an inferior good for maintaining health of the elderly Indonesians.