Papers of BAS

Papers of BAS. Humanities and Social Sciences

Vol. 12, 2025, No. 1

Contemporary aspects of the relationship

between life expectancy and the standard of living

of the population in the Republic of Bulgaria

Nikolay Stoenchev, Yana Hrischeva

Abstract. This article focuses the eternal topic of life expectancy and the everlasting search for prerequisites for its gradual increase. The situation in the province in Bulgaria is presented in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and life expectancy at birth, as well as overall mortality and mortality by main groups of diseases; moreover, the correlation coefficients were calculated in order to find relationships between the mentioned values. We came to the conclusion that GDP per capita, which is used as a measure of the standard of living, features a moderately positive correlation relationship with foreseeable life expectancy. We also found a moderately negative relationship between standard of living and the overall mortality and in the case of mortality from circulatory diseases. Another finding is the weaker negative relationship between GDP per capita and mortality rate from neoplasms. The weakest appears to be the relationship between the standard of living and the mortality from respiratory diseases. The calculations were made on the basis of official comprehensive field information from the National Statistical Institute for 2023. Conclusions were drawn on the reasons for these results and on the possibilities of increasing life expectancy in line with the increase in population’s material well-being.

Keywords: Gross Domestic Product, life expectancy, standard of living

JEL: I31, J1