Exploring the correlation between life expectancy and gdp in several countries

By looking at each country by themselves it seems like there is a strong linear correlation.

But. I’m here to argue that that isint fully the case. Quite frankly I believe that life expectancy depends on general life quality rather than gdp. And that life quailty can be measured in a different way than gdp. So, lets take a look at the graphs by country first

Chile

China

Germany

Mexico

Usa

Zimbabwe

We can see on the above visulations that there seems to be a strong positive correlation between life expectancy and gdp.
lets look at all data if to see the bigger picture

on the above plot we see that gdp values can range between aprox 0.2 to 1.75 and still maintain a life expectancy of about 80 years. However a gdp of up to 0.1 and above seems to have a huge impact on life expectancy, but after that it seems it stops giving that effect.

It is possible that when people have better conditions they worry less about survival. and when they worry less about survival they are less inclined to hoard whatever resources they have. Since they are less likely to hoard they spend more, and gdp increases.

And since better conditions means less worry of survival (food), people will be more likely to spend on other things. Then more non-food related stores would be likely to get increased revenue.

Since non-food related stores would get increased revenue
A possible way to measure life quality could be by exploring the increase in revenue from clothing stores, or other non-food related purchases.

Since life expectancy increases after 0.1, this seems to be the gdp when ‘safety’ is reached for a population. or in other words. The population on average have the ability to afford food.

These are the correlation in numbers using pearsonr for those who would rather have those instead of visuals

Correlation between life expectancy and gdp in all countries is:  0.34320674844915605 

Chile the correlation between Life Expectancy and GDP is:  0.9498766659254417 

China the correlation between Life Expectancy and GDP is:  0.9085255408648357 

Germany the correlation between Life Expectancy and GDP is:  0.932698898256127 

Mexico the correlation between Life Expectancy and GDP is:  0.9322377167847082 

USA the correlation between Life Expectancy and GDP is:  0.9817092382430257 

Zimbabwe the correlation between Life Expectancy and GDP is:  0.9661998955858777

As we can see above. If we take this on a country by country basis, it will look like there is a strong linear correlation between gdp and life expectancy.

But when we look at the bigger picture it is quite clear that gdp and life expectancy is not correlated.

However, a rising gdp can mean improvements to life expectancy. But the gdp itself does not seem to matter (as long ‘safety’ is reached). This could be that a rising gdp simply gives people a better outlook on the future. And that is what increases the quality of life, and life expectancy as a result.

To clarify what I am saying; I believe that a rising gdp can give a positive outlook on life for the population. And that is what increases life expectancy rather than the gdp itself.

This data was collected from the World Health Organization and the World Bank.