Narrowing gaps in human survival

Maps in this section show changing patterns of global life expectancy and infant mortality. One paradox of the world since 1945 is that global economic inequality has been widening while inequalities of life and death have been narrowing. The UN Development Program's Human Development Reports (annual) were amongst the first to document this process.

This figure, from the 1992 Human Development Report indicates how survival gaps were narrowing between about 1960 and 1990. The life expectancy gap in years between between the North and the South of the globe was 22.8 years in 1960 and 11.7 years in 1990. The gap in infant mortality between North and South was 123 in 1960 and 61 in 1990. In these figures North means the industrialized countries, members of the OECD. The global South means the non-industrialized world.

We discuss in the section How inequality and growth affect life and death some of the reasons why gaps in human survival may be narrowing.

The Human Development Report for 1992 also showed widening gaps in what it called human progress. Mean years of schooling, enrollment in higher education, numbers of telephones, expenditure on research and development, are all rising faster in the North than in the South.