Life Expectancy in Developing Countries: A Cross-Section Analysis

Life Expectancy at birth is widely accepted as a useful indicator of the health status of a country's population and beyond that, is extensively used by international agencies as a general indicator of national development. New Orthodox economists regard longevity as one of the key functioning's for economic development (UNDP 1990). Over the past few decades', developing countries have achieved remarkable improvements in terms of their life expectancy. "In 1950 average life expectancy in developing countries was forty years; by 1990 it had increased to sixty-three years" (World Bank 1993, p.l). This success has been attributed to a number of factors such as growing incomes and increasing education as well as governments' efforts to improve the health status of their citizens. In spite of the average gain, the observed differentials in life expectancy between developing countries are considerable. For instance, the World Development Indicators (World Bank 1998) show the highest life expectancy in 1998 as 76 years for Costa Rica, while the lowest as 37 years in Sierra Leone