According to CIA 2008 estimates life expectancy in North Korea is 71.92, which is far higher than global average and even slightly higher than that of EU members Romania and Latvia. HDI for North Korea is only available for 1995 where it was 0.766. Both figures show that life in North Korea is somewhere in the middle of modern world, far better than in real third world, and vastly better than historical average.
It seems to me that North Korea was used as an example for its connotations, not denotations—that’s a cheap trick that we should be avoiding.
Maybe 7 figure death tolls from famine didn’t occur in those two years (definitely not 2008), since life expectancy is calculated based on death rates within the different age categories in the particular year. If every fifth year 20% of the population is slaughtered, that could actually raise life expectancy for most years if the death disproportionately affected the unhealthy (as famine might).
According to Wikipedia North Korea had positive population growth even during the famine, so this cannot be the explanation. Even if life expectancy figure for North Korea is too high for some reasons, it still seems to be far better than for most real failed third world countries, especially in Africa.
Positive population growth means the addition of more low-mortality babies into the population. But certainly if the figures are to be trusted (like the claims of Kim Il Sung’s supernatural powers?) that could only explain a portion.
This, um, sounds pretty suspicious to say the least. I can possibly see life expectancy in NK being better than life in Somalia, because at least in NK you’ve only got one dictator to worry about. But as a rationalist, I must indicate confusion and suspicion of the data.
CIA and WHO life expectancy estimates of poor countries differ a lot, I have no intention of arguing which is correct, however by both estimates of life expectancy, and by most other quality of life estimates, North Korea is far above most of Africa, in many cases including rich African countries like South Africa.
I think the reasons you and many other people think North Korea is so bad come from exposure to media. American and Western European media have political reasons to dislike North Korea, and no reason to care at all about most failed countries like Sierra Leone or Lesotho. And “evil oppressive government” is much easier to turn into a good sensational story than run of the mill “thousands of children died of diarrhea because they didn’t have access to clean water”—in North Korean story there’s a clear evil villain, in Africa there isn’t.
As far as I can tell, government oppression tends to be focused on small number of people who are considered (truthfully or not) politically dangerous, and quality of life of most people isn’t strongly affected—due to information scarcity I cannot be sure if that’s true about North Korea, but it was definitely true about European Communist countries.
Typical third world economic oppression (low GDP + high income inequality + no social safety net) affects larger number of people, and as far as I can tell causes a lot more suffering. And these are pretty much the standard living conditions of humanity for most of the human history, so considering them some sort of spectacular failure would seem rather weird.
This might be hard to reliably estimate but the WHO gives North Korean life expectancy as 66 years. That doesn’t confuse me or make me particularly suspicious.
I wouldn’t be surprised if life expectancy on North Sentinel Island is significantly lower but it’s possible that average happiness over there is higher. Which society would you prefer your child to be born into, if you had a choice between those two?
According to CIA 2008 estimates life expectancy in North Korea is 71.92, which is far higher than global average and even slightly higher than that of EU members Romania and Latvia. HDI for North Korea is only available for 1995 where it was 0.766. Both figures show that life in North Korea is somewhere in the middle of modern world, far better than in real third world, and vastly better than historical average.
It seems to me that North Korea was used as an example for its connotations, not denotations—that’s a cheap trick that we should be avoiding.
Maybe 7 figure death tolls from famine didn’t occur in those two years (definitely not 2008), since life expectancy is calculated based on death rates within the different age categories in the particular year. If every fifth year 20% of the population is slaughtered, that could actually raise life expectancy for most years if the death disproportionately affected the unhealthy (as famine might).
According to Wikipedia North Korea had positive population growth even during the famine, so this cannot be the explanation. Even if life expectancy figure for North Korea is too high for some reasons, it still seems to be far better than for most real failed third world countries, especially in Africa.
Positive population growth means the addition of more low-mortality babies into the population. But certainly if the figures are to be trusted (like the claims of Kim Il Sung’s supernatural powers?) that could only explain a portion.
This, um, sounds pretty suspicious to say the least. I can possibly see life expectancy in NK being better than life in Somalia, because at least in NK you’ve only got one dictator to worry about. But as a rationalist, I must indicate confusion and suspicion of the data.
CIA and WHO life expectancy estimates of poor countries differ a lot, I have no intention of arguing which is correct, however by both estimates of life expectancy, and by most other quality of life estimates, North Korea is far above most of Africa, in many cases including rich African countries like South Africa.
I think the reasons you and many other people think North Korea is so bad come from exposure to media. American and Western European media have political reasons to dislike North Korea, and no reason to care at all about most failed countries like Sierra Leone or Lesotho. And “evil oppressive government” is much easier to turn into a good sensational story than run of the mill “thousands of children died of diarrhea because they didn’t have access to clean water”—in North Korean story there’s a clear evil villain, in Africa there isn’t.
As far as I can tell, government oppression tends to be focused on small number of people who are considered (truthfully or not) politically dangerous, and quality of life of most people isn’t strongly affected—due to information scarcity I cannot be sure if that’s true about North Korea, but it was definitely true about European Communist countries.
Typical third world economic oppression (low GDP + high income inequality + no social safety net) affects larger number of people, and as far as I can tell causes a lot more suffering. And these are pretty much the standard living conditions of humanity for most of the human history, so considering them some sort of spectacular failure would seem rather weird.
This might be hard to reliably estimate but the WHO gives North Korean life expectancy as 66 years. That doesn’t confuse me or make me particularly suspicious.
I wouldn’t be surprised if life expectancy on North Sentinel Island is significantly lower but it’s possible that average happiness over there is higher. Which society would you prefer your child to be born into, if you had a choice between those two?
Are you serious?
If you look at NK in conjunction with South Korea, it begins to look a lot worse.
(At the same time, you can look at Kenya relative to Somalia and it is just as unflattering.)