The table compares countries with different income levels in terms of population growth, average births per woman, and life expectancy at birth in 2002 and 2004.
Overall, high-income countries had the lowest population growth and birth rates but the highest life expectancy throughout the period. In contrast, low-income countries experienced the fastest population growth and the highest fertility rates, along with the lowest life expectancy.
In 2002, the population growth in high-income countries was 0.8%, slightly declining to 0.7% in 2004. Similarly, the figure for middle-income countries dropped from 0.9% to 0.8%, while in low-income nations it fell more noticeably, from 2.0% to 1.8%.
A similar downward trend can be observed in the number of births per woman. In high-income countries, it remained stable at 1.7, while in middle- and low-income countries, the figures decreased slightly from 2.2 to 2.1 and from 3.9 to 3.7 respectively.
As for life expectancy, people in richer countries lived much longer than those in poorer ones. In 2002, life expectancy in high-income countries was 78.0 years and increased marginally to 78.7 in 2004. Middle-income countries saw a similar rise, from 69.1 to 70.0 years, while low-income countries experienced only a small improvement, from 58.1 to 58.8 years.