Standards of living and health status: the socioeconomic determinants of life expectancy gain in sub-Saharan Africa

Moussa Keita

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Using a panel dataset on 45 sub-Saharan Africa countries (SSA), this study analyzes empirically the socioeconomic determinants of life expectancy gain (considered as an indicator of global health improvement at country level). In order to treat heterogeneity and endogeneity concerns, we use multiple estimation methods including pooling, fixed-effect, long difference and system GMM. Our analyses show that income is critical for health enhancement. Particularly, we find that GDP per capita is strongly and positively correlated with life expectancy gain. Furthermore, variables such as adult literacy, access to improved sanitation and safe water appear positively correlated health gain. In contrast the high incidence of extreme poverty is negatively correlated with heath gain while the impact of income inequality seems ambiguous.

Keywords: Standards of living; health; life expectancy at birth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C12 C51 I11 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:57553

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