When travelling to another country it is interesting to compare some statistics.
Spain has a population of 46.5 Million. Canada 37 Million. British Columbia 4.8 Million.
Spain’s GDP per capita in USD $28,156. Canada in $51,315.
16% of Spain‘s GDP is tourism. In 2017 82 Million tourists visited Spain. 6 Million visited Madrid.
Annual health spending in Spain USD $3,371 per capita, Canada $6,604, US $9,596.
Of paraticular interest Spain Life expectancy at birth 82.83 years. For Canada at birth it is 79 years for men and 83 for women.
I could not help asking the question what is the current life expectancy for a 79 year old male in Canada and in BC. At 65 a male in BC is expected to live 19.2 years = 84.2. There has been some recent publicity about male life expectancy in BC dropping because of the high number of deaths from Fentanyl related ovedose deaths. This illustrates that the statistical models for calculating life expectancy are affected by deaths in each age group.
It might be that in Spain, which was not involved in the first or second world wars has a high life expectancy. However there was a lot of deaths (about 500,000 by one account) in the 1936-1939 Civil war. It needs someone more knowledgable than me to provide a better explanation. One thing is clear though is that countries who have very high health spending do not necessarily achieved better outcomes (like length of life).
Spain’s unemployment is 15.5% overall and 34.7% for those aged 16-24. The rate is falling rapidly based on one graph that I saw. In discussion with a few young people - even if you can get a job having obtained an education you may still be in a low paid, service injures types of job.
