Global Trends in Life Expectancy: A Club Approach

• Main Author: Ulla Lehmijoki
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Population Research Institute of Väestöliitto 2009-01-01
• Series: Finnish Yearbook of Population Research
• Online Access: https://journal.fi/fypr/article/view/45043

This paper discusses the post-war trends in life expectancy worldwide. Even though applying the specification test to a sample of 125 countries suggests that some life expectancy clubs exist, their number and borderlines are not properly distinguished by mechanical splits of the sample. Hence, the clubs are discovered by regression tree analysis. The potential threshold variables are initial per capita income, literacy, fertility change, and the HIV prevalence rate in 2005. Four clubs appear, characterized as High Literacy, Low Literacy, Medium Literacy, and High AIDS, between which considerable life expectancy differentials appear. Excluding the HIV prevalence rate from the threshold candidates re-allocates a considerable number of the members of the High AIDS club, indicating that incomes, literacy, and fertility are unable to predict AIDS completely. The similarity of economic and demographic conditions in the Low Literacy and High AIDS clubs, however, raises concerns about life expectancy convergence in the future.