The changing relation between mortality and level of economic development: Samuel H Preston

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Hello!I am Nishat Zareen

Roll No: FM 044-029 2ND YEAR, 3RD SEMESTER

Course No: 201Department of Population

SciencesUniversity of Dhaka

It is worldwide supported that mortality has become dissociated from economic level because of a rapid progress of medical and health technologies, facilities independently of economic level. This article depicts few cross sectional relationships between life expectancy and income level per head evaluated during 3 different decades of the 20th century. . In this article ‘national income’ has been considered as a standard scale of measuring economic development and comparing it to mortality level. National income has been chosen

because, it is one of the best single indicator of living standard in a country. National income combines the value of all final products (goods and services) produced in a certain period.

Methods: Relationship between mortality and level of economic development have been derived by using cross sectional study on data evaluated during 3 different decades of 20th century. A graphical representation of the relation between mortality and national income has been drawn. Attention is focused on the relationships in the 1930s and 1960s, for which most data are available. A logistic curve, plotted on the figure, was fitted to each set of data.

A graphical representation of the relation between mortality and national income has been drawn. Attention is focused on the relationships in the 1930s and 1960s, for which most data are available. A logistic curve, plotted on the figure, was fitted to each set of data.

Findings: In this article the author has derived three cross sectional relationship between income and increase in life expectancy. There is no reason to expect a direct influence of national income per head on mortality. The relationships stated in this article are:Level of income influences level of mortality at a moment in time: - Coefficients of correlation between the infant

mortality rate and income have been found to be consistently high, of the order of 0.8. The relationship is sufficiently strong for infant mortality rates on occasion to have been used as indicators of income levels.

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- One study in low developed countries shows that, no country can attain a life expectancy of more than 60 years without having made very substantial progress out of the category, ‘less developed’.Level of income influences rate of change in mortality:- The rate of improvement of mortality can be expected to be direct function of the existing level of mortality in a country. make it clear that they intend the existing level of mortality to be a proxy variable for a nation’s level of income, so that the rate of change of mortality is considered to be a function of level of income.

Rate of change of income influences rate of change of mortality: A cross-sectional relationship between income and mortality implies that a certain change in income should be associated with a particular change in mortality, with relative magnitudes of change determined by coefficients of the relationship. . In particular, the cross-sectional relationship between mortality and income may itself be changing in response to new influences.

These relationships appear to shift systematically during the century. In general, in order to attain a certain life expectancy between 40 and 60 a nation requires an income level almost three times greater in the 1930s than in the 1960s.

This shift is corroborated by a changing structure of mortality by cause of death for populations at equivalent mortality levels. The magnitude of the shifts, combined with regional income data suggests that some 75–90 per cent of the growth in life expectancy for the world as a whole over these three decades is attributable to factors exogenous to a nation's contemporary level of income

The cross-sectional relation between income and life expectancy remains strong and there is some suggestion that mortality is now more responsive to variations in income levels among countries with national incomes below $400 (1963 dollars) than it was in the 1930s. Population size appears to respond so slowly to the mortality declines that typically result from income growth that these mortality effects present little impediment to the process of economic development. Some of the variability in the cross-sectional mortality-income relation is doubtless due to variation in income distributions.

maps Life expectancy in Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia, countries with wide disparities in incomes, falls short of levels expected on the basis of their mean incomes. On the other hand, life expectancy in Soviet-bloc countries, where income equality is expected to be greater than average, also falls short of expected levels. Western and non-Western countries alike profited from the activity of ‘exogenous’ medical and public health factors. Differences between the two types of countries have been exaggerated by concentration on movements between equivalent mortality levels rather than during equivalent time periods.

Conclusion

Although the influence of economic stability over mortality has reduced over time, but there is still significant correlation between mortality and economic development. The relationship has weakened over time due to diffusion of medical technologies and many other social and cultural factors.

Critique:There are many other factors responsible for the changing trend of mortality over time, many social and cultural factors which are closely related to economic status. But author here has only discussed the changing trend of mortality rate from the economic point of view. Although, author has mentioned the contribution of medical technology in reducing mortality at some point. But throughout the article he tried to explain the change of mortality trend from the economic point of view.

The changing relation between mortality and level of economic development in the context of Bangladesh:- Bangladesh is now an emerging economy in South Asia. There has been a radical change since independence. GDP per capita increased from US dollar 200 in the 1970s to around US dollar 1900 in 2011 purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. --- This has been possible due to the sharp increase in GDP over the period. Average GDP growth rate was 2-3 percent in the 1970s which rose to around 3.5 percent during the 1980s.

GDP growth rate accelerated to 4.5 per cent in the first half of the 1990s and to 5 per cent in the second half of that decade. It hovered around 6 percent over the first decade of 21st century. - - Since our population growth rate was below 1.5 percent per annum during this decade, over a 4.5 percent growth in per capita GDP was very commendable. Bangladesh is now progressing towards attending a growth rate of 7-8 percent per annum which will graduate Bangladesh towards a middle income country very soon.- The health status of our country has improved considering the economic status. The decline in infant and child mortality rates, for example, is

among the fastest in the developing world. - Child mortality rate declined from 270 per

1000 live births in 1970. 18 to 140 per 1000 live births in 1990 and 49 per 1000 live births in 2011. Thus Bangladesh is progressing towards achieving the goal of reducing child mortality rate below 48 per 1000 live births by 2015.

- Bangladesh’s progress in reducing child mortality rate has been commended, including a UN Award. Bangladesh has also made remarkable progress in reducing maternal mortality rate since 1990. No Maternal mortality rate declined from 800 per 100000 live births in 1980s to 240 per 100000 live births in 2010.

- Bangladesh is not likely to achieve the goal of reducing maternal mortality below 144 per 100000 live births.

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