The table provides information about population growth, life expectancy at birth in countries with different income levels in 2002 and 2004.
Overall, Low income countries had the highest poplulation growth and birth rate while high income countries had the longest life expectancy at birth. It is noticeable that life expectancy increased in all three groups. The number of average birth per woman decreased slightly or remained stable.
Looking at the high income and middle income countries, in 2002 population growth fell from +0.8% to +0.7% in 2004. The number of average births per woman remained stable in 2004. Life expectancy stood at 78.0 in 2002 and this figure increased to 78.7 in 2004. Moreover, turning to middle income countries, the figure for the population growth remained unchanged at +0.9%. The average number of births per woman showed a slight decrease from 2.2 to 2.1. Life expectancy stood at 69.1 and increased slightly to 70.0.
Looking at the low-income countries, the figure for population growth stood at +2.0% in 2002 and declined slightly to +1.8% in 2004. Similarly, the average number of births per woman fell from 3.9 in 2002 to 3.7 in 2004. Life expectancy at birth increased gradually from 58.1 to 58.8 years.