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Health gap between developed and developing countries: Does globalization matter?

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Abstract

Whilst there is a rich body of literature linking globalization with economic disparities between rich and poor nations, there is very little situated understanding of causal links, if any, between globalization and health gaps between nations. Set against this background, this paper contributes to the empirical literature by investigating globalization as a channel of the health gap between countries in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Results from a dynamic panel data analysis show that globalization has statistically insignificant impact on the health gap between the OECD and SSA countries. Rather, economic and demographic structures, measured by the age dependency ratio (% of working-age population) and GDP per capita growth emerged as the main determinants of the health gap between SSA and OECD countries. The paper draws out some policy implications which may usefully impact programmes aimed at checking health inequities between developing and developed countries.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Source: Brennan Ramirez et al. (2008)

Fig. 3

Notes

  1. WHO (1946) defines health as “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

  2. CHAPS (2008) defines Health disparities as “preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations”.

  3. WHO (2006) defines globalization as “the increased interconnectedness and interdependence of people and countries, is generally understood to include two interrelated elements: the opening of borders to increasingly fast flows of goods, services, finance, people and ideas across international borders; and the changes in institutional and policy regimes at the international and national levels that facilitate or promote such flows”. Globalization has three dimenisions,namely economic, social, and political (Dreher 2006). These three dimensions will be discussed in the data section.

  4. WHO (1946) defines health as “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

  5. CSDH (2008) defines social determinants of health as “Economic and social conditions that influence the health of people and communities”.

  6. See also Benini (2016), Kheng et al. (2016), Elmawazini et al. (2016), Elmawazini and Nwankwo (2013) and Fowowe and Shuaibu (2014).

  7. See also Vivarelli (2015) and Iwasaki and Suganuma (2015).

  8. Income is one of the main determinants of health status (CSDH 2008).

  9. See also Elmawazini (2014, 2015).

  10. Li and Liu (2005) formula is

    $$Health\_GAP_{i,t} = \frac{{OECD{\text{'}}s\;{\text{life expectancy at birth }} - SSAcountry{\text{'}}s\;{\text{life expectancy at birth}}}}{{SSAcountry{\text{'}}s\;{\text{life expectancy at birth}}}} .$$

  11. Many previous studies focus on individual sub-dimension of globalization (e.g., Iwasaki and Suganuma 2015; Fowowe and Shuaibu 2014; Jiang 2012; Elmawazini and Nwankwo 2013).

  12. See also Elmawazini (2008, 2012).

  13. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is a major factor in Africa failing to achieve the MDGs mentioned in Sect. 2.

  14. One of the main limitations of this study is that eleven SSA countries are excluded from this study. This is due to data unavailability (see Table 5 in “Appendix”).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful suggestions and constructive comments that contributed to enhancing the final version of the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Economics and Finance Department, College of Business Administration, Gulf University for Science and Technology, P.O. Box 7207, West Mishref, 32093, Hawally, Kuwait

    Khaled Elmawazini & Bader AlNaser

  2. Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, 55 Laurier Avenue East, DMS 5151, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada

    Pranlal Manga

  3. Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna, PMB 2109, Nigeria

    Sonny Nwankwo

  4. Royal Docks School of Business and Law, University of East London, 4-6 University Way, London, E16 2RD, UK

    Sonny Nwankwo

Authors
  1. Khaled Elmawazini
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  2. Pranlal Manga
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  3. Sonny Nwankwo
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  4. Bader AlNaser
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Khaled Elmawazini.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 3, 4 and 5.

Table 3 KOF index of globalization (numbers in parentheses are the weights for each variable).
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Table 4 Definitions.
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Table 5 SSA countries in the KOF index
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Elmawazini, K., Manga, P., Nwankwo, S. et al. Health gap between developed and developing countries: Does globalization matter?. Econ Change Restruct 52, 123–138 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10644-017-9219-0

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