教育、經濟、健康因素與預期壽命關係之跨國研究

A Cross-Country Study on the Relationship Among Educational, Economical, Health Factors and Life Expectancy

近年來國家發展重心集中在改善國民的預期壽命，許多先進國家的平均預期壽命已超過80歲。雖然各國的國民預期壽命逐漸增加，然而對於影響預期壽命長短的重要因素仍沒有具體論點。本研究探討各國國民的預期壽命，包括男性與女性預期壽命，找出與預期壽命有關的重要因素。本研究資料取自世界銀行的2019年統計年報資料，納入全球140個國家的數據，針對教育（包括教育年數與高等教育在學率）、經濟（國民所得與失業率）與健康因素（包括自殺率與政府健康經費占國內生產毛額比率），獲得結論為：一、教育年數與高等教育在學率和預期壽命有顯著關聯，它們對預期壽命的解釋力在54.6%至72.7%之間；二、國民所得與預期壽命有顯著關聯，但是對預期壽命的解釋力僅在2.1%至9.1%之間；三、自殺率和失業率明顯與預期壽命存在著負向關聯，尤其與男性預期壽命關聯較大；四、各國政府健康經費占國內生產毛額比率與預期壽命沒有明顯關聯。整體來看，教育、經濟與健康因素之中，人力資本與預期壽命的關聯最高。這意味著各國應重視人力資本，並有適切的教育投資。

The national development for health concentrated on improving life expectancy in recent years, and average life expectancy of many advanced countries has exceeded 80 years. Although the life expectancy of nationals in various countries was gradually increasing, the researchers have not reached a consensus on the impacted factors of life expectancy yet. The aim of this research is to investigate the impacted factors on the life expectancy, including the male and female life expectancy respectively, and explore to the key impacted factors on life expectancy. The data of 140 countries were collected from the World Bank (2019), and the variables were divided into education (including years of education and higher education enrollment rate), economy (including national income and unemployment rate) and health factors (including suicide rate and government health expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product). The analysis led to the following conclusions: 1. Educational attainment years and higher education rate were significant correlated, and these could explain life expectancy range from 54.6% to 72.7%. 2. Per capital income also significantly correlated with life expectancy, however, its explanation only ranged from 2.1% to 9.1%. 3. Suicide rate and unemployment rate were negatively significant factors on life expectancy in respectively, that is, these correlated with life expectancy, especially for male had higher correlation with their life expectancy. 4. The percentage of government expenditure on health of gross domestic product was not significantly correlated with life expectancy. In summary, the research results showed the highest positive correlation between human capital and life expectancy among the education, economy and health factors. Which implied that countries should attach importance to human capital and have more appropriate investment in education.