Correlates of life expectancy in less developed countries

Abstract

Analyses were performed to investigate several hypotheses concerning the multiple determinants of levels of life expectancy in developing countries in recent decades and some possible explanation for the observed variations in amount of gain in life expectancy from the 1950's to the 1970's. The findings were significant. For level of life expectancy the results of this present work conform by and large to results of other scholars in this area, although the present work is unique in that only developing countries were included. From the 1960's to the 1970's there has been a shift in the relative importance of economic indicators and general social indicators in favor of the social indicators. In the period 1960-65 some 70% of the variation in levels of life expectancy was associated with per capita income and literacy rates in a ratio of about three to two in favor of the economic variable. By 1970-75 the ratio has become six to one in favor of literacy. In addition, the multivariate model showed that the sanitation variables began to appear as significant correlates of levels of life expectancy in the more recent time period, playing a larger role than level of income per capita. Work pursued as part of a separate but concurrent project explored explicitly this three-way interaction between literacy, life expectancy and sanitation. For change in life expectancy from 1950 through 1970, associations were quite different. Per capita income was not associated with the absolute change in life expectancy, and the associations with literacy were much smaller than earlier observed with level of life expectancy at a point in time. In the multivariate model the primary correlates with change were the sanitation variables and health personnel as represented by population per midwife. Tests for such associations with variations in amount of gain in life expectancy have not been found in other literature and comparison with other findings can therefore not be made directly. The present work suggests that it may be lower skill levels of health manpower and activities in sanitation that are the main correlates in a multivariate model of absolute change in life expectancy.

The Determinants of Health Status: Evidence from Asian Developing Countries

“…In most empirical studies, per capita income, adult literacy, nutritional status and the availability of health services are included as important determinants of health status and per capita income and adult literacy are significant determinants of life expectancy in less developed countries but nutritional status is not statistically significant [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. The study by Grosse and Perry [8] tries to find the correlates of life expectancy during the 1950s and the 1970s. Their results also show that per capita income and literacy rates are the major determinants of health status.…”

Structural Adjustment and Performance in Living Standards in Developing Countries

“…Several attempts have been made in the past to estimate the non-linear relationship which captures the asymptotic behaviour of these variables (see, for instance, Goldstein, 1985; Grosse and Perry, 1983;Morris, 1979;Preston, 1975;Sheehan and Hopkins, 1979). As per capita GDP increases, the standard of living increases less and less steeply until it reaches an asymptotic limit.…”

A Cross-Country Analysis of Achievements and Inequities in Economic Growth and Standards of Living

“…As per capita GDP increases, the standard of living increases less and less steeply until it reaches an asymptotic limit (Hicks and Streeten 1979). Many attempts have been made in the past to estimate the nonlinear relationship, which captures the asymptotic behavior of indicators of standard of living (Sheehan and Hopkins 1979, Morris 1979, Grosse and Perry 1983, Goldstein 1985. All these models are generally flawed because of the frequent misspecification of the nature of nonlinearity inherent in them.…”