Economic and Social Determinants of Life Expectancy: Evidence from a Cross-Country Panel, 2010–2023

We study how income, schooling, health spending and unemployment relate to life expectancy in an unbalanced panel of 142 countries observed over 2010–2023 (1,649 country-year observations, World Bank data). Pooled OLS shows large associations for every variable, but these mostly reflect differences between countries. With country fixed effects and standard errors clustered by country, log GDP per capita (4.05, SE 0.60) and secondary enrolment (0.044, SE 0.010) remain strongly associated with life expectancy: a 10% higher GDP per capita goes with about 0.4 more years. Once common year effects are added, the income coefficient falls to 0.68 and is no longer statistically distinguishable from zero, while enrolment and unemployment stay significant. The negative health-expenditure coefficient in fixed-effects models is driven by 2020–21: it disappears when those years are dropped or controlled for. Life expectancy was about 1.2 years lower in 2021 than in other years, with no clear 2020 effect. Only the enrolment effect differs significantly (at the 5% level) between high-income and other countries. The results are descriptive associations, not causal estimates.