The impact of environmental pollutants emission (carbon dioxide) on life expectancy of men and women in Iran

Among greenhouse gases, CO2 has a crucial role; thus, its impact on health indicators such as life expectancy is of great importance. Hence, one of the most important challenges in the health sector has been the impact of the environmental pollutants emission, namely CO2, on life expectancy of men and women.

This is a descriptive-analytical and applied design with the health economics approach. The present paper examined the impact of pollutant emissions, namely CO2, per capita income, death rate and birth rate, separately on Iranians’ life expectancy. This analysis was conducted using Quantile regression with EViews10 software during the period 1960 - 2019. In this study, first, the impact of pollutant emissions on life expectancy of all Iranians was calculated. Then, the impact of CO2 on life expectancy of Iranian men and women in different quantiles was estimated.

The results confirm the impact of carbon dioxide emissions per capita on total life expectancy was -0.133 and the impact of this pollutant emission on life expectancy obtained -0.170 and -0.127 for men and women, respectively. Both effects were estimated as negative and significant. This effect on life expectancy of men was 0.43% higher than that of women. Furthermore, the impact of death on life expectancy was negative, while the effect of per capita income on life expectancy was positive. Also, birth rate had a positive impact on women's life expectancy, whereas, it showed a negative impact on men.

The study revealed that CO2 emissions had a negative impact on total life expectancy of both men and women. Thus, in order to increase life expectancy in Iran, pollutants emission, namely CO2, should be controlled. These results can be a good guide to decision makers and macro-policy makers in Iran to control environmental pollutants to increase life expectancy.