How Does Income Relate to Life Expectancy?

A data story on exploring if there is a relationship between economic growth and life expectancy.

Introduction

There is a huge difference in how long people are expected to live in countries across the world. No high income countries have short life expectancy, and no low income countries have long life expectancy. Still, there are large differences in life expectancy between countries on the same income level, depending on how the money is distributed and how it is used. We’re going to look at income and life expectancy in countries across the world.

Grade Bands I, II, and III

Time to look at the data!

Definitions

• Per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Measures the monetary value of final goods and services produced in a country in a given period of time
• Life expectancy. The number of years a person is expected to live from the time they were born.
• Population. Total number of people regardless of legal status or citizenship.
• Outlier. A data point or points that goes far outside the average value for the rest of the data.
• Per capita. Just another phrase for ‘per person’.

Learning Goal: For all Grade Bands

Data Question - Notice

What do you notice about the data? Start by saying, “I notice that…”

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Learning Goal: For all Grade Bands

Data Question - Wonder

What do you wonder about the data? Start by saying, “I wonder if…”, “I wonder why…”, or “I wonder how…”

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Learning Goal: For all Grade Bands

Data Question

• Which country has the greatest number of people in 2020?
• Which country has the fewest number of people in 2020?
• Which country has the highest per capita GDP in 2020?
• Which country has the highest life expectancy in 1990?
• What is the average life expectancy in your country?

Grade Band I

Data Question

• Which country had the largest change in GDP per capita between 1990 and 2020?
• Which country had the largest percent change in GDP per capita between 1990 and 2020?
• How many countries are home to more than 1 billion people (in 2020)?
• How many countries are home to between 100 and 200 million people (in 2020)?

Grade Band II

Data Question

• Is life expectancy and per capita GDP correlated?
• Is that relationship linear?
• Which countries would you say are outliers in that relationship?
• How does that relationship start to change as you pare down the sample to smaller (or larger) countries?

Grade Band III

Data Collection

Which notice and wonder statements can we answer?

• Insert your notice and wonder statements

Learning Goal: For all Grade Bands

Data Collection

Which notice and wonder statements can we not answer?

• Insert your notice and wonder statements

Learning Goal: For all Grade Bands

Data Collection

What we can answer:

• Do you think the largest countries have the highest levels of per capita GDP?
• What about the longest life expectancy?

Grade Band I

Data Collection

What we cannot answer:

• Can we find the number of people or companies producing goods to create the GDP measure?
• Why does life expectancy differ by country?

Grade Band I

Data Collection

What we can answer:

• Which of the three variables do we expect to show the largest changes over time?
• What factors may have helped to foster those changes over time?

Grade Band II

Data Collection

What we cannot answer:

• Can we find the per capita GDP values for countries not included in the dataset? Why might those countries not be included in the dataset?
• Can we find the differences in life expectancy by race and gender?

Grade Band II

Data Collection

What we can answer:

• What other factors do you think help determine the relationship between income and life expectancy?
• Do you think these relationships have changed over time and have those relationships changed in different regions of the world?

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Grade Band III

Data Collection

What we cannot answer:

• Is the measure of life expectancy accurate?
• Is life expectancy being measured more accurately now than 30 years ago?

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Grade Band III

Data Analysis

Data are often “messy,” such as missing values and in the wrong units (e.g., feet vs. inches).

Time to look at a “messy” version of the data and identify what parts of the data are messy!

Learning Goal: For all Grade Bands

Data Analysis

Insert the selected visualization.

Grade Bands I and II

Data Analysis

Time to analyze the data! Follow these steps:

1. Sort, filter, and aggregate the data.
2. Report how you altered the data.
3. Compare states above and below the national average.

Grade Band III

Data Visualization

Grade Band I

Data Visualization

Grade Band I

Data Visualization

Grade Band I

Data Visualization

Grade Band II

World population in 2020

Data Visualization

Grade Band II

Data Visualization

Grade Band II

Data Visualization

Grade Band II

Data Visualization

Grade Band III

Data Visualization

Grade Band III

(Circles sized by population)

Data Equity - Who is represented �in the data?

• Are you represented in the data?
• Are you family members represented in the data?
• Are your friends represented in the data?
• Are people in your community represented in the data?
• Do the data reflect your experiences?

For all Grade Bands

Data Ethics - How should we �report the data?

Suppose we published our data analysis and data visualization.

• What would the title be?
• What information, key concepts, and takeaways would be included in the article?

For all Grade Bands

Data Ethics - How should we �report the data?

Now, to evaluate our answers from the previous questions.

• What conclusions would someone make from the title alone?
• Does the content of the article match the title?
• Does the article credit who collected, analyzed, and/or visualized the data?
• Would it be important to know the answer to the previous question? Why or why not?

For all Grade Bands

Data Privacy - Are we telling the �right data story?

• Suppose the data were collected at the continent region level (North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia). Would the answer to the data question change? Why or why not?
• Suppose the data were reported at the city level. Would the answer to the data question change? Why or why not?

For all Grade Bands

Data Privacy - Are we telling the �right data story?

• If your information was part of the data, would you be more comfortable with the data being reported at the continent level or city level? Why or why not?
• At what geographic level would answer the data question while protecting your personal information?

For all Grade Bands