Changes in inter-country differences in length of life and lifetime losses (1970-2010)

Alyson A. van Raalte, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Vladimir M. Shkolnikov, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and New Economic School, Russia
Dmitri A. Jdanov, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and New Economic School, Russia

Mortality declines in best-practice countries have continued unabated, while laggard countries have experienced mixtures of mortality decline, stagnation and in some instances even mortality increases in recent decades. In this study we focus specifically on the age patterns of mortality change driving trends in life expectancy and lifetime losses, in high and medium countries included in the HMD. Specifically we aim to unravel the relative importance of different initial age-specific mortality patterns in 1970 (initial conditions), different age-specific patterns of improvement in mortality (shape differences), and different rates of mortality improvement (level differences) in driving overall mortality convergence and divergence, using a variety of existing and newly developed decomposition techniques. Uncovering these age-specific dynamics will be useful to more precisely determine the prime conditions for optimal mortality declines, and the obstacles faced by groups of countries in converging toward current low mortality regimes.