Economic Factors That Influence Mortality Rate: An Evidence From Ghana

Michael Kwabena Ofori ,Yinfei Chen

doi:10.7176/jesd/11-4-05

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how economic growth influence mortality rate in Ghana from the year 2000 to 2016 based on a dynamic model augmented with life expectancy, employment and economic growth. Results show that life expectancy is the critical most important factor in changing the level of mortality rate negative. Economic growth (GDP) and employment have plausible negative signs to mortality rates. However, they will significantly have influence in the case of discrete growth policy implementation and thus demonstrating the importance of living standards to mortality. Also, Granger causality tests show a significant relationship from employment and economic growth and reflects their importance in changing the observed levels of mortality. Keywords : Life Expectancy, Mortality rate, Employment, Unemployment, Medicare, Economic Growth, Granger causality. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-4-05 Publication date: February 29 th 2020

Highlights

Life expectancy refers to the portion of the normal life span a creature is estimated to survive established at the time of birth, its present age, and demographic conditions
This paper investigates how life expectancy impacts mortality rate on a model augment with some of the important macroeconomic variables- employment and economic growth as the moderator variables in determining the level of resource availability for better living standards to offset mortality
Unlike with employment and output, the coefficient of life expectancy is significant at 5% an intuition that when mortality rate is reduced by 10.48% when life expectancy is increased by 1%

Summary

Introduction

Life expectancy refers to the portion of the normal life span a creature is estimated to survive established at the time of birth, its present age, and demographic conditions. Recent information circulated by the World Health Organization (WHO) states that life expectancy at birth in Africa is 61.2 years and approximately 62.4 years in Ghana. This puts Ghana on 25th in Africa Life Expectancy at birth ranking (WHO, 2019). Ghana’s life expectancy was observed over some few years, and it was identified that since 2008 life expectancy has increased at an annual rate of approximately 0.46%. The country’s economy GDP is ranked 73rd in the world as of 2018 by the World Bank, which shows major development to previously ranked 85th in 2013 (Bank, 2019). Ghana had a significant increase in its economy in 2017 after a struggle in the previous years. The financial deficit decreased from 6% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017 from 9.3% in 2016, reinforced by severe economic amalgamation efforts (World Bank, 2018)

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