33
Getting Better? In Search of Convergence
BOX 1.1 continued with its comparators around the world (Baris, Mollahaliloglu, and Aydin 2011). Perhaps a more puzzling exception has been the western Balkans, where life expectancy has improved at a fairly steady rate (with the exception of a period from the mid-1970s until 1990) over the past 50 years. Potential hypotheses include the mitigating role of diet (Gjonca 2004) and a larger emphasis on primary care than in the Soviet Union (Davis 2010) (figure B1.1.1b).
FIGURE B1.1.1
Significant Variation in Life Expectancy Trends across Countries and over Time, 1970–2010 b. Good performers Life expectancy at birth (years)
Life expectancy at birth (years)
a. Stagnation and divergence 75 70 65 60 55 50 1970
1980
1990 Year
Central Europe
2000 Baltics
2010
75 70 65 60 55 50 1970
1980
1990 Year
Former Yugoslav republics
2000
2010 Turkey
Belarus, Russian Federation, Ukraine Source: World Development Indicators (database).
large countries from the Baltics to the Caucasus and from Central Asia to southeast Europe. Finally, while alcohol plays an important role in excess mortality in some countries, it is by no means the only culprit—there are many other causal factors, as discussed in chapter 3. The catch-up of other middle-income countries is mostly due to their later success in addressing infant and child mortality, which have a disproportionate impact on life expectancy. The contrast with ECA is therefore partly the consequence of ECA’s early successes in addressing these issues in the 1950s. But it is also true that available evidence on adult mortality suggests that ECA has underperformed on this measure since 1970 vis-à-vis others (Rajaratnam et al. 2010). However, the divergence from Western Europe is particularly striking. The gap in life expectancy has doubled, from about 5 to 10 years, since 1960. By contrast, the dominant global demographic trend
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