Poverty and Life Expectancy
The Jamaica Paradox

A multidisciplinary study explaining Jamaica's rise from low to high life expectancy.

James C. Riley (Author)

9781107403697, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 October 2011

250 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.37 kg

Poverty and Life Expectancy is a multidisciplinary study that reconstructs Jamaica's rise from low to high life expectancy and explains how that was achieved. Jamaica is one of the small number of countries that have attained a life expectancy nearly matching the rich lands, despite having a much lower level of per capita income. Why this is so is the Jamaica paradox. This book provides an answer, surveying possible explanations of Jamaica's rapid gains in life expectancy. The rich countries could invest large sums in reducing mortality, but Jamaica and other low-income countries had to find inexpensive means of doing so. Jamaica's approach especially emphasized that schoolchildren and their parents master lessons about how to manage disease hazards. This book also argues that low-income countries with high life expectancy, such as Jamaica, provide more realistic models as to how other poor countries where life expectancy remains low can improve survival.

1. 'A singular blessed island'
2. What needs to be explained?
3. The situation around 1920
4. Rapid gains in life expectancy, 1920–50
5. The good years, 1950–72
6. Against growing odds, 1972–2000
7. Conclusion
Appendix 1. Estimates of life expectancy, 1881–1964
Appendix 2. Official sources for quantitative information.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], General & world history [HBG]