Does Prosperity Pay? Unraveling the Relationship Between Economic Performance and Life Expectancy across a Large Number of European Regions, 2005–2018

Markus Sauerberg , Federal Institute for Population Research
Michael Muehlichen, Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)
Laura A Cilek, CCHS-CSIC
Florian Bonnet, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Ina Alliger, Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)
Carlo Giovanni Camarda, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

Understanding the relationship between life expectancy at birth (e0) and the gross domestic product per capita (GDPpc) is relevant for cohesion policies in the European Union (EU) because it might imply that economic convergence (or divergence) is accompanied by narrowing (or widening) health gaps. Previous studies have studied the association between GDPpc and e0 almost exclusively based on national data. It is certainly more appropriate, however, to study the relationship at the subnational level because levels and trends in both variables, e0 and GDPpc, vary substantially across Europe’s regions. Accordingly, the aim of our study is examining, whether economic performance of regions predict their e0 level. We build Preston curves from regression models using regional data for 19 European countries, divided into 535 regions. Mortality data comes from statistical offices and GDPpc can be obtained from the Eurostat database. The period 2005 to 2018 is particularly interesting as it immediately follows the EU enlargement to central-eastern European countries in 2004. In our analysis, spatial units refer to NUTS-2 or NUTS-3 regions, depending on the size of the country. Our preliminary results suggest that there is indeed a positive association between GDPpc and e0. Similarly, to Preston’s original analysis, we observe an upward shift in the curve, indicating that factors exogenous to a region’s GDPpc level play an important role in explaining e0 gains as well.

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 Presented in Session 65. Flash session Mortality and Longevity