The impact of economic, social, and political globalization and democracy on life expectancy in low-income countries: are sustainable development goals contradictory?

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals announced by the United Nations are important guides for the development processes of developing countries. However, achieving all of these goals is only possible if the goals are consistent with each other. It has been observed in the literature that possible contradictions between these goals are ignored. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate whether two sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the UN are contradictory or supporting each other in low-income countries. These SDGs are “Good Health and Well-Being” (SDG3) and “Partnerships for the Goals” (SDG17). For this purpose, the role of globalization and democracy in life expectancy is empirically investigated in 16 low-income countries over the period 1970–2017. While globalization has been used as an indicator of the partnership between countries, democracy has been used as an indicator of accountability and cooperation between governments and societies. According to estimations of the continuous-updated fully modified (CUP-FM) and bias-adjusted ordinary least squares (BA-OLS), globalization and its subcomponents such as economic, social, and political globalization affect life expectancy positively. Democracy also increases life expectancy in those countries. The GDP per capita is also used as a control variable. Our results show that a higher level of per capita income is positively associated with higher levels of life expectancy. In conclusion, no contradiction was found between SDG3 and SDG17 in those countries. Achieving a healthier society requires economic, social, and political integration between governments and societies.