Australia vs. Costa Rica: Child mortality rate and income per person

How Does Income Affect the Child Morality Rate In Australia and Costa Rica?

The country of Australia is known as one of the most highly developed, new world countries, especially when you compare it to a country that’s not as developed like Costa Rica. Since the country of Costa Rica, and all that it has to offer is less developed, we see that there is a higher infant mortality rate opposed to Australia. Mortality, otherwise known as death, is the measure of the number of deaths which belong to a specific population, which also counters the population, and amount of time in which people died. Since the general income per person increases at a daily rate, the child morality rate decreases for both countries, however it’s decreasing at a faster rate for Australia. The generalization leads one person to think that the more developed country is, the more likely they are to have a constant decrease in negative statistics such as the child mortality. This is a study and interpretation of information received and graphs created in order to answer the essential question. How Does Income Affect the Child Morality Rate In Australia and Costa Rica?

Since the year 1990, the world has cut its infant mortality rate down by nearly 50 percent. This is great progress but it still falls short from the goal that is trying to be achieved, which is a reduction of two thirds. “Since the beginning of the age of the Enlightenment and over the course of modernization, the mortality of children below 5 years of age has declined rapidly. Child mortality in rich countries today is much lower than 1%. This is a very recent development and was only reached after a hundredfold decline in child mortality in these countries.”(Roser, Child Mortality). The previous graph is a representation of the world Infant Mortality rate compared to the average income in each country. As you can see, as the annual income per person increases, the infant mortality rate decreases In the year 2015, about 11 children died per minute which promotes the idea that the survival of children should be a top priority. Bigger countries such as Russia or Canada have have a high decrease of  Below is a list of the world’s countries with the highest infant mortality rate from the CIA world factbook, on this list Costa Rica is number 151 and Australia is 188 which doesn’t seem to be that much of a place difference but the numbers hold a significant difference from each other

In the graph above, the X axis is represented Income per person and the Y axis is represented by child mortality rate. The data was collected by an international census, each circle is represented by the total population. The Y value decreases as the X value increases, this is a negative correlation. There doesn’t seem to be any sharp increases or drops. The highest point is at 8K and 160 and the lowest point is at 80k and 2.5. The colors represent the region and I am choosing to represent Costa Rica and Australia. The scale doubles on the X and Y axis. The countries compare to be very close.

Costa Rica has an infant mortality rate of roughly 8.3 deaths per one thousand births and and an annual GDP of approximately 16,100 dollars per person. Australia on the other hand has an infant mortality rate of 4.3 deaths per one thousand births and an annual GDP of 48,800 dollars per person. As you can see in the graph above, as time goes on while the income per person continues to increase, the infant mortality rate continues to steadily incline despite some minor spikes throughout history.

High infant mortality rates could be a result of improper childcare. A population of people with unhealthy and disease ridden children who will grow up and become sickly adults prone to sickness, halts the economic progress of a country. An increased fertility rate could result in a health decline for the mother. Pregnancies later on in the life of a physically ill mother will result in malnourished and sick children with little chances of survival both before and after birth. It damages the later generations by decreasing the enrollment rate of children in school and it increases the cost of medical care, taking away needed resources from clients.

Declining poverty rates and increasing knowledge and service in the health sector, child mortality worldwide is facing a rapid decline: Global child mortality fell from 18.2 percent to 4.3 percent in between 1960 and 2015. 4.3 percent is still high but it is very progressive. In the year 1990, 7.6 million children died before the age of five, this number then decreased to 3.7 million in 2013. This decrease happened when there was a global baby boom. Bigger countries have decreased their child mortality rate 10 times over the past 40 years. Other countries, mainly in Africa, continue to have high infant mortality rates. On the other hand, these countries are still making progress, like in Sub Saharan Africa where the infant mortality rate has been at a steady decrease for the past 50 years.