FIGURE 2-1 GDP per capita and life expectancy at age 50 in the richest countries in 1960 and 2005, both sexes.

NOTES: Countries are designated by the standard United Nations country codes (see http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49alpha.htm); see the complete list below.

We define the richest countries to be those in which GDP per capita was more than 10,000 purchasing power parity dollars in 2005, excluding those in which population size is less than 1 million (i.e., Bahrain, Botswana, Brunei, Cyprus, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iceland, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Macao, Malta, Oman, Qatar) or in which mortality data quality is questionable (i.e., Argentina, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Korea). In total, 35 countries are considered for the year 2005: Australia (AUS), Austria (AUT), Belgium (BEL), Canada (CAN), Croatia (HRV), Czech Republic (CZE), Denmark (DNK), Estonia (EST), Finland (FIN), France (FRA), Germany (DEU), Greece (GRC), Hong Kong (HKG), Hungary (HUN), Ireland (IRL), Israel (ISR), Italy (ITA), Japan (JPN), Latvia (LVA), Lithuania (LTU), the Netherlands (NLD), New Zealand (NZL), Norway (NOR), Poland (POL), Portugal (PRT), Russia (RUS), Singapore (SGP), Slovak Republic (SVK), Slovenia (SVN), Spain (ESP), Sweden (SWE), Switzerland (CHE), Taiwan (TAI), United Kingdom (GBR), United States (USA). For 1960, we include the same countries subject to data availability (except Germany, which is replaced by West Germany, FRG).

SOURCE: Drawn from data on Gross Domestic Product per capita from the World Bank (1976, 2008); estimates of life expectancy at age 50 from Human Mortality Database (2009 [accessed January 2009]).