A Reconsideration of the Health Status – Economic Growth Nexus: Evaluation of the Gender Differential Effect in Nigeria

Abstract

It is tempting to say that the health status-economic growth literature in Nigeria is exhaustive due to the large body of extant studies. However, gaps exist on the gender perspective to the relationship between health status and economic growth in Nigeria as the literature largely examined the relationship at the aggregate. Therefore, this study seeks to explore the gender dimension to the health-economic growth nexus in Nigeria using gender-disaggregated data on longevity. Applying the dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) to the time series for the period between 1981 and 2018, the findings suggest there is gendered difference in the effect of male and female life expectancy at birth on economic growth. Specifically, the results show that male life expectancy at birth is positively correlated to economic growth while there is evidence of a negative relationship between female life expectancy at birth and economic growth. Also, foreign investment and credit to private sector were found to be negatively correlated with economic growth while the urbanization rate was found to have economic growth premium in the study period.