Implementing
an “Investing in People” strategy requires not only fiscal resources
from the state but also a supportive social environment. Using provincial panel
data from 2008 to 2023, this study develops a Panel Vector Autoregression
(PVAR) model to examine the dynamic relationships among social security
expenditure, social organization development, and health human capital
formation, as well as their regional heterogeneity. The results yield three
main findings. First, social security expenditure consistently promotes social
organizations, providing evidence for a resource-empowerment effect.
However, the reverse effect—whereby organizations improve fiscal efficiency—is
weak and becomes insignificant after controlling for macroeconomic factors, indicating
that this pathway is context-dependent. Second, the two factors influence
health human capital through distinct temporal channels. Social security
expenditure produces immediate short-term effects, whereas social organizations
exhibit a significant lagged effect that varies sharply across
regions and is strongest in eastern China. Third, regional patterns diverge
notably: the east shows nascent bilateral synergy, the central region remains
fiscally driven, and the west exhibits organizational autonomy with limited
coordination. These findings offer empirical grounding and region-specific
policy insights for refining the Investing in People strategy and strengthening
the health foundations of the labor market.
