HSS 2321 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Periphery Countries, International Inequality, Dependency Theory
3 Apr 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
There have been wide variations in life expectancy over time. Average life expectancy in pre-industrial europe and canada was less than 40 years. Today, females and males in canada can expect to live for about 83 and 79 years (in old textbook is says 78), respectively among the highest rates in the world. Changes in life expectancy over the past 150 years in canada and elsewhere in the developed world can be explained by a number of factors. As the economy changes from a low to a high per-capita income, there is a corresponding transition from high mortality and high fertility to low mortality and low fertility. Mckeown (1976) offers the explanation that the decline in the mortality rate is almost entirely due to the decline in infectious disease due to: Improved nutrition accounted for about half of the increase. Better hygiene, resulting in fewer water- and food-borne diseases, accounted for about one-sixth of the improvement.
