Social, Economic and Environmental Determinants of Life Expectancy in Nigeria

Life expectancy at birth is essential for evaluating a countrys economic and social development. In Nigetria, life expectancy increased in the last decades, however, it is below the sub-Saharan Africa average of 60.24 years and 72.98 years global average (World Bank, 2023). This study investigates the determinants of life expectancy in Nigeria. The Grossman (1972) health model provided the theoretical framework for the study. Data were obtained from World Bank database from 1980 to 2022. The determinants of life expectancy considered comprises socio, economic, and environmental factors. All variables tested for their time series properties, using Augmented Dickey-Fuller, and Phillip-Perron tests, the test of co-integrations among them were examined using the Auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound test approach. The GDP per capita (p=0.0011), adult literacy rate (p=0.0024), total fertility (p=0.0659) and the effect of degree urbanization (p=0.0292) have a positive and statistically significant relationship with life expectancy. The relationship between CO 2 emission (p=0.0717) and life expectancy at birth is negative and significant. The coefficient of the error correction model (P=0.000) is negative and statistically different from zero. Growth of per capita income, improve literacy rate, fertility rate, and degree of urbanization are important determinants of life expectancy in Nigeria. Also, environmental degradation influenced life expectancy though negatively. Intuitively, as the social and economic indicators in the country are improving, and CO 2 emission is reducing, the people tend to enjoy prolonged life. The study was not able to capture some important determinants of improved life expectancy such as access to safe drinking water, smoking rate, calorie intake, crime rate, and per capita health expenditure.as well as other factors. A better understanding of the determinants of life expectancy in Nigeria using time series data that span 1980 – 2022 with sufficient degree of freedom to account for a large percentage influence of socio, economic, and environmental factors on life expectancy.