by Tom Kando
Abstract
This article attempts to show
that country SIZE (population) , as an independent variable, can predict
quality of life. That is, smaller countries enjoy a better quality of life than
larger countries. The dependent variable - quality of life - is
operationalized through three indicators: per capita GDP, the murder
rate, and life expectancy. It is shown that smaller countries indeed enjoy
higher per capita income, lower murder rates, and longer life expectancy.
Correlations between the three dependent variables are also examined: As
expected, the relationship between per capita GDP and life expectancy is
positive, and the relationship between the murder rate and life expectancy is
negative. However, the relationship between per capita GDP and the murder rate
turned out to be POSITIVE, which came as a surprise.
This study is largely descriptive, not explanatory. While I offer a few
explanations, my aim is not to provide a
detailed causal analysis. The relationships I
examine are quite possibly spurious. They are certainly part of a much
more complex set of variables, including political, cultural and
geographical factors. However, these
data offer a global view of how four
major variables interact.
The
Descriptive Data
First, I ranked the world’s 230
countries and jurisdictions in order of population size, from smallest to
largest:
I then grouped the 230 countries
into 23 groups of 10 each, and computed
each group’s average population, per capita GDP, murder rate and life
expectancy.
Results
1. The relationship between
country size and standard of living, as
measured by per capita income:
The 23 groups of countries were
divided into the 12 richest groups and the 11 poorest groups, and into the 12
smallest groups of countries and the 11 largest groups. In table One below,
the Chi Square value shows that
the predicted relationship between country size and per capita income is
significant at the .05 level. As mentioned earlier, this is not really a “test of significance,” since
I am not analyzing a sample. It merely expresses the STRENGTH of the
relationship.
Table
One: The Relationship between Country Size and Per Capita Income
Rich
Countries
|
Poor
Countries
|
Total
|
|
Small
Countries
|
9
|
3
|
12
|
Large
Countries
|
3
|
8
|
11
|
Total
|
12
|
11
|
23
|
Chi
Square: 5.24. Significant at .05 level
Comments: As I tabulated the 230 countries of the
world, I was struck by the very large number of small island nations with very
low per capita income, largely located
in the Pacific and in the Caribbean.
Anticipating a rejection of my hypothesis, it occurred to me that my
prediction had been based on my
experience in the Western world, primarily in Europe. There, small
jurisdictions such as Monaco, Luxembourg, San Marino and Liechtenstein
tend to be very affluent. But my hypothesis is apparently valid worldwide.
The
ten smallest countries of the world have an average population of 5,555 people.
The ten largest countries of the world -
China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria,
Bangladesh, Russia and Japan - have an average population of 417,840,000 people. They range from the
Vatican, with 451 people, to China, with a population of 1.375 billion. There
are 71 countries in the world with a population of less than one million, and
11 countries with more than one hundred million each.
The
world’s annual per capita GDP is
$13,100. It ranges from $600 for the two poorest countries - Somalia and the
Central African Republic - to $102,000 for Qatar.
Africa
is by far the poorest continent. 17 of the 20 poorest countries are in Africa.
9 of the 20 richest are in Europe and 5 are in the Middle East.
America
is the 19th richest country in the world. It is the most notable
exception to my hypothesis linking affluence to small size.
2.
The relationship between country size and crime, as measured by the murder
rate:
Using
the same methodology, Table Two, below, shows the relationship between these
two variables.
Table
Two: The Relationship between Country Size and Murder Rate
High Murder Rate
|
Low
Murder Rate
|
Total
|
|
Small
Countries
|
5
|
7
|
12
|
Large
Countries
|
7
|
4
|
11
|
Total
|
12
|
11
|
23
|
Chi
Square: 1.1. Not significant at .10 level, however, “directional” support for hypothesis.
Comments: Again, what the Chi Square value reveals is not a matter of statistical significance, but the strength of the relationship. What Table Two indicates is that small countries tend to have a lower murder rate than large countries, but that this relationship is not very strong.
The
world’s average annual murder rate is 6.9 per 100,000. It ranges from 0 to 90.4. Countries which have a
zero murder rate include the Vatican, Tokelau, Liechtenstein and Monaco. The country with the highest murder
rate is Honduras (90.4) followed by Venezuela (82.0), El Salvador (58,3), US
Virgin Islands (52.6), St. Kitts &Nevis (46.0), Belize (44.7), Jamaica
(44.3), and Guatemala (39.9). Thus, the top eight murder countries in the world
are all in the Western Hemisphere, most of them in Latin America. Their
average rate is 57.3, or eight and a
half times that of the world.
The
US murder rate is 4.6, which is lower than the world average, but higher than
that of other developed countries in the West and elsewhere.
As
to why the relationship between country size and murder rate is not as strong
as I expected it to be: There are, in the worldwide distribution of murder
rates, apparently some extreme outliers among the very poor small island
nations. For example Dominica has a rate of 21.1, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’s rate is
22.7, Saint Lucia’s is 23.5, St. Kitts
& Nevis’s
is 46.0 and that of the U.S. Virgin Islands is 52.6. By comparison,
the world’s murder rate is 6.9.
In
absolute numbers and by continent, the total number of people murdered in any
given year is largest in Africa and smallest in Oceania. This is shown in Table
Three, below:
Table Three: Murder by
Continents.
Continent
|
Rate
|
Number
|
Africa
|
17.0
|
169,105
|
Americas
|
15.4
|
144,595
|
Asia
|
3.1
|
127,120
|
Europe
|
3.5
|
24,025
|
Oceania
|
2.9
|
1,180
|
World
|
6.9
|
466,078
|
Source:
Murder Rate by Nation and Continent.
Note:
The murder numbers in this study only include individual criminal murders. They
exclude other forms of violence such as
war, genocide, state-sponsored terrorism as well as individual acts of
terrorism, and the various forms of mass
annihilation described in Abram De Swaan's book The Killing Compartments: The mentality of Mass Murder (Yale University Press, 2015). For example, the current Syrian war, the Tutsi genocide in 1994 and the 9/11 attack are EXCLUDED from this study's statistics. However, the murders committed by drug cartels in Mexico and in Columbia (for example by FARC) are included.
3.
The relationship between country size and life expectancy:
(To
be continued)
© Tom Kando 2015
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