Where Does the Preston Curve Lead Us?

Abstract

World Bank and Russian Federal State Statistics Service data were used to analyze cross-country correlations between life expectancy (LE) and per capita gross domestic product (GDP). The trends detected upon comparisons across different countries (the Preston curve) or regions of the Russian Federation (RF) in 2015 were compared. In addition, the correlations between the same parameters related to different years, from 1960 to 2015, were examined in each of several selected countries representing the upper and lower extremes of GDP and LE. The same has been done with LE vs. per capita health care spending (HCS). In all cases, the points related to the RF are located significantly lower than the respective regression lines (Preston curves) built based on all points. The LE vs. GDP and LE vs. HCS plots and their extrapolations constructed based on data related to different years in the same country run markedly lower for the RF as compared with other countries, including Tajikistan and the Republic of Congo. At the same time, the ratio of GDP and HCS has been shown to be the same throughout all years and all countries. Taken together, these observations suggest that the effectiveness of investing available resources in LE, i.e., in the quality of human life, is markedly lower in RF as compared not only with Finland and Japan, where GDP and HCS are several times greater but also with Congo and Tajikistan, where these parameters are several times smaller than in the RF. This means that in the RF, it is impossible to increase LE up to 80 years, which has been declared a national priority, merely by increasing GDP and HCS. Identification of the factors responsible for the above disproportions is beyond the scope of the present paper. However, the mere awareness of their existence is essential as an incentive to take special efforts aimed at the identification and neutralization of these factors.