Structural Violence at the World Level: Diachronic Findings

Abstract

Previous cross-national studies have shown that life expectancy is linked to GNP per capita. Indeed, an earlier paper by the authors of this paper postulated an economic law of life: for every increase of GNP per capita of 7.7 % in the poor nations of the world there is an increase of one year in life expectancy, on the average. Using energy consumption per capita data for 26 poor nations for two different time periods, the authors confirm that this 'law of life' applies over time as well as across nations: for every increase of energy consumption per capita of 7.2 % there is an increase of one year in life expectancy, on the average. For rich nations there is a discrepancy between the synchronic and diachronic analyses. Across nations, wealth is not significantly associated with life expectancy, while across time, wealth is significantly associated with life expectancy, an 18.1 % increase in wealth pro ducing a one year increase in life expectancy.