The Impact of Urbanization on Life Expectancy in ASEAN Countries: A Panel Data Analysis

This paper investigates the relationship between urbanization and life expectancy in ASEAN countries using a panel data analysis over the period 2001-2023. The study includes fixed-effects and robustness checks to estimate the impact of urbanization— along with a series of control variables such as health expenditure per capita, access to basic sanitation services, government education expenditure per capita, and fertility rate— on life expectancy at birth. The results show that urbanization alone does not explain within-country changes in life expectancy over time. Rather, education expenditure and access to basic sanitation services emerge as the most significant and robust determinants of improvements in broader health outcomes across ASEAN countries. These findings suggest that governments seeking to improve health outcomes should prioritize tangible public investment into human capital development and adequate sanitation infrastructure rather than relying solely on urbanization as a healthimproving force.