The Relation between Women’s Health and Economic Growth in Three Islamic Developing Countries: Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan
Tahereh Darvishdoost *
Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Shiraz University of Medical Science, Shiraz, Iran.
Ismael Rezaeinejad
Department of Marketing, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Miklukho-Maklaya Street, 6, 117198, Moscow, Russian Federation, Russia.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Human health is one of the critical economic challenges, especially in developing countries. This concept has an essential role in the development process and is considered one of the most influential human resources factors. Moreover, women’s health directly affects countries’ economic growth. Given the importance of health on economic growth and considering that health is one of the fundamental aspects of human capital, we tried to examine the effect of life expectancy, fertility rate, and mortality rate on the economic growth of three Muslim countries in the Middle East. The findings indicated that the hypothesis assumes no causal relationship between women’s health indicators and economic growth in these countries could not be rejected at the significance level of 5%. Finally, the authors concluded a one-way causal relationship between economic growth and women’s health indicators in these countries.
Keywords: Economic growth, women’s health, econometrics, panel data regression, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan