IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jsecdv/v24y2022i2d10.1007_s40847-022-00184-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of socio-economic indicators on COVID-19: an empirical multivariate analysis of sub-Saharan African countries

Author

Listed:
  • Phemelo Tamasiga
  • Ashenafi Teshome Guta

    (Addis Ababa University)

  • Helen Onyeaka

    (University of Birmingham)

  • Maureen Sindisiwe Kalane

    (University of Botswana)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented social and economic crisis. This study aims at investigating the impact of socio-economic indicators on the levels of COVID-19 (confirmed and death cases) in sub-Saharan Africa. The investigation makes use of the readily accessible public data: we obtain COVID-19 data from Johns Hopkins and socio-economic indicators from the World Bank. The socio-economic indicators (independent variables) used in the multilinear regression were GDP per capita, gross national income per capita, life expectancy, population density (people per sq. km of land area), the population aged 65 and above, current health expenditure per capita and total population. The dependent variables used were the COVID-19 confirmed and death cases. Amongst the seven socio-economic indicators, only 4 showed a statistically significant impact on COVID-19 cases: population density, gross national income per capita, population aged 65 and above and total population. The obtained R2 of 69% and 63% indicated that the socio-economic indicators captured and explained the variation of COVID-19 confirmed cases and COVID-19 death cases, respectively. The startling results obtained in this study were the negative but statistically significant relationship between COVID-19 deaths and population density and the positive and statistically significant relationship between gross national income per capita and COVID-19 cases (both confirmed and deaths). Both these results are at odds with literature investigating these indicators in Europe, China, India and the UK.

Suggested Citation

  • Phemelo Tamasiga & Ashenafi Teshome Guta & Helen Onyeaka & Maureen Sindisiwe Kalane, 2022. "The impact of socio-economic indicators on COVID-19: an empirical multivariate analysis of sub-Saharan African countries," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 24(2), pages 493-510, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jsecdv:v:24:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s40847-022-00184-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s40847-022-00184-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40847-022-00184-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40847-022-00184-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robyn Swift, 2011. "The relationship between health and GDP in OECD countries in the very long run," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(3), pages 306-322, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rong Fu & Luze Xie & Tao Liu & Juan Huang & Binbin Zheng, 2022. "Chinese Economic Growth Projections Based on Mixed Data of Carbon Emissions under the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-16, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Åsa Johansson, 2016. "Public Finance, Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of the Evidence," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1346, OECD Publishing.
    2. Wen-Yi Chen, 2016. "Health progress and economic growth in the USA: the continuous wavelet analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 831-855, May.
    3. Geng Niu & Bertrand Melenberg, 2014. "Trends in Mortality Decrease and Economic Growth," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1755-1773, October.
    4. Ye, Liping & Geng, Jiang-Bo, 2021. "Measuring the connectedness of global health sector stock markets," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    5. Joana Cima & Alvaro S Almeida, 2018. "Health Expenditure, GDP Growth and the Financial Crisis: A Panel Data Analysis for OECD European Countries," FEP Working Papers 602, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    6. Cornelius A. Rietveld & Pankaj C. Patel, 2021. "Prescription opioids and new business establishments," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1175-1199, October.
    7. Jos'e A. Tapia Granados & Edward L. Ionides, 2024. "Income, health, and cointegration," Papers 2407.15755, arXiv.org.
    8. Simona-Andreea Apostu & Valentina Vasile & Valentin Sava, 2021. "Do Cardiovascular Diseases Significantly Influence Healthy Aging?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-15, July.
    9. Dorn, Florian & Lange, Berit & Braml, Martin & Gstrein, David & Nyirenda, John L.Z. & Vanella, Patrizio & Winter, Joachim & Fuest, Clemens & Krause, Gérard, 2023. "The challenge of estimating the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 interventions – Toward an integrated economic and epidemiological approach," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    10. Brandt, Martina & Deindl, Christian & Hank, Karsten, 2012. "Tracing the origins of successful aging: The role of childhood conditions and social inequality in explaining later life health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(9), pages 1418-1425.
    11. Astolfi, Roberto & Lorenzoni, Luca & Oderkirk, Jillian, 2012. "Informing policy makers about future health spending: A comparative analysis of forecasting methods in OECD countries," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 1-10.
    12. Cornelius A. Rietveld & Pankaj C. Patel, 0. "Prescription opioids and new business establishments," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-25.
    13. Ikechukwu Andrew MOBOSI & Patrick Onochie OKONTA & Christopher Emmanuel NWAN KWO, 2023. "Health Burdens and Labor Productivity in Africa’s Middle- and Low-Income Economies: Implication for the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 14(4), pages 4954-4972, December.
    14. Propper, Carol & Janke, Katharina & Lee, Kevin & Shields, Kalvinder & Shields, Michael A, 2020. "Macroeconomic Conditions and Health in Britain: Aggregation, Dynamics and Local Area Heterogeneity," CEPR Discussion Papers 14507, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Neofytidou, Aliona & Fountas, Stilianos, 2020. "The impact of health on GDP: A panel data investigation," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).
    16. Wang, Shaobin & Ren, Zhoupeng & Liu, Xianglong & Yin, Qian, 2022. "Spatiotemporal trends in life expectancy and impacts of economic growth and air pollution in 134 countries: A Bayesian modeling study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    17. Olufunmilayo Olayemi Jemiluyi & Ifeoluwa Alao-Owunna, 2020. "A Reconsideration of the Health Status – Economic Growth Nexus: Evaluation of the Gender Differential Effect in Nigeria," Eurasian Journal of Economics and Finance, Eurasian Publications, vol. 8(4), pages 217-230.
    18. Xiaoxuan Yang, 2020. "Health expenditure, human capital, and economic growth: an empirical study of developing countries," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 163-176, June.
    19. Liping Ye & Xinping Zhang, 2018. "Nonlinear Granger Causality between Health Care Expenditure and Economic Growth in the OECD and Major Developing Countries," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-16, September.
    20. Sera Şanlı, 2018. "A Canonical Correlation Approach In Determining Growth & Development And Social Inclusion Linkages," Academic Review of Humanities and Social Sciences, Bursa Teknik Üniversitesi, vol. 1(3), pages 130-146.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jsecdv:v:24:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s40847-022-00184-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.