scholarly journals The life table paradox: has Brazil already overcome it?

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Filipe Costa de Souza

Ideally, life expectancy should be a decreasing function of age. When this fact is not observed, this situation is known as the life table paradox. This paper investigated the timing (and health metrics at the time) in which Brazil and its Federation Units (FU) overcame (or are expected to overcome) this paradox. The data were gathered from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and contained 3,416 sex-specific abridged life tables, from 2000 to 2060. At national level, females and males overcame the paradox in 2016 and 2018, respectively. However, when the FU were examined separately, much heterogeneity was observed. Through the decomposition analysis of the change over time in the difference between life expectancy at birth and at age one, we found that Brazil and most of its FU are expected to have both changes declining over time and the total change is expected to be decreasing and greater than zero. Nevertheless, for some Northeastern states the total change is expected to pass from a positive to a negative value; and for two Northern states the total change is expected to be neither decreasing nor increasing. In a public planning perspective, we understand that achieving balancing in the life tables is a goal to be pursued, especially because having an imbalanced table means that life expectancy at birth is still strongly influenced by high levels of infant mortality. Therefore, this knowledge could help planners to properly define strategies to accelerate the balancing process and revert unequal scenarios.

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Zur Nieden ◽  
Bettina Sommer

The Federal Statistical Office’s 2010/12 general life table is the first to provide results on life expectancy based on census data for reunified Germany. This article therefore examines the question of how the revisions of the population figures from the 2011 census affected the measured life expectancy. To do so, we analysed both the official life tables based on the old intercensal population updates before the census and those based on the population data from the 2011 census. The method used to calculate the census-adjusted 2010/12 general life table was also transferred to separate life tables drawn up for the German and the foreign population. In this way, findings on the so-called “healthy migrant effect” can be discussed, ruling out possible errors in the intercensal population updates. These errors had previously been cited as the main causes for a distinctly longer life expectancy among the foreign population compared with the German population. As expected, a census-based calculation for the total population and for the German population resulted in only minor revisions to the life expectancy figures. The use of the census results does, however, distinctly alter the life expectancy of foreign women and men. An advantage of over 5 years in life expectancy at birth, measured on the basis of the old population data, needs to be revised to about 2.9 years for men and 2.1 years for women based on the 2011 census. The healthy migrant effect therefore cannot be traced back solely to data artefacts from the old intercensal population updates – even with revised data, the foreign population shows marked survival advantages.


1988 ◽  
Vol 27 (03) ◽  
pp. 137-141
Author(s):  
M. A. A. Moussa ◽  
M. M. Khogali ◽  
T. N. Sugathan

SummaryLife table methods are employed complementary to standard rates to analyse Kuwaiti mortality data due to infectious diseases. The procedure comprises total mortality, multiple-decrement, cause—elimination and cause—delay life tables. To improve reliability of estimated age-specific death rates, the numerator was based on the three-year average of deaths (1981-83), while the denominator was the mid 1982 population projected from the 1980 and 1985 population censuses. To overcome the difficulty of age heaping, both mortality and census data were graduated using the natural cubic spline approach. Proportional mortality was maximum in intestinal infectious diseases particularly in the rural Jahra Governorate. Infectious diseases caused 29.4 and 37.1% of male and female deaths respectively in infancy and early childhood. The male and female life expectancy at birth were 67 and 72 years, respectively.The multiple-decrement life tables showed that 3,346 men and 2,986 women out of the birth cohort (100,000) will ultimately die from infectious diseases. The average number of years lost due to infectious diseases were 0.75 years in both men and women. Relating this loss to the affected (saved) subpopulation only, large gains in life expectancy occur (22.3 and 25.2 years in men and women respectively).


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Fazle Rabbi

Life expectancy at birth is a well-known demographic measure of population longevity. Rationally, life expectancy at birth should be higher than life expectancy at any particular age. However, historically, lower life expectancy at birth is observed than that of age one, which diminishes the feature of life expectancy at birth as a prominent indicator of longevity. High infant and child mortality rates result in lower values of life expectancy at birth than at older ages. This imbalance in life table disappears only when the crossover occurs and it happens when the inverse of the infant mortality becomes equal to the life expectancy at age one. For Matlab Health and Demographic surveillance system of Bangladesh, life expectancy at age one is still higher than life expectancy at birth. Required infant mortality rate to achieve crossover suggests further decline in infant mortality for Matlab HDSS to attain crossover of life expectancy at birth and age one. Keywords: Life expectancies; Developing countries; Imbalance; Life table.  © 2013 JSR Publications. ISSN: 2070-0237 (Print); 2070-0245 (Online). All rights reserved.  doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jsr.v5i3.14105 J. Sci. Res. 5 (3), 479-488 (2013)


Author(s):  
David A. Swanson ◽  
Lucky M. Tedrow

AbstractThis paper discusses known mathematical equalities and inequalities found within life tables and proceeds to identify two new inequalities. The first (theorem 1) is that at any given age x, the sum of mean years lived and mean years remaining exceeds life expectancy at birth when age is greater than zero and less than the maximum lifespan. The second inequality (theorem 2) applies to the entire population and shows that the sum of mean years lived and mean years remaining exceeds life expectancy at birth. Illustrations of the two inequalities are provided as well as a discussion.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
N Nante ◽  
L Kundisova ◽  
F Gori ◽  
A Martini ◽  
F Battisti ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction Changing of life expectancy at birth (LE) over time reflects variations of mortality rates of a certain population. Italy is amongst the countries with the highest LE, Tuscany ranks fifth at the national level. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the impact of various causes of death in different age groups on the change in LE in the Tuscany region (Italy) during period 1987-2015. Material and methods Mortality data relative to residents that died during the period between 1987/1989 and 2013/2015 were provided by the Tuscan Regional Mortality Registry. The causes of death taken into consideration were cardiovascular (CVS), respiratory (RESP) and infective (INF) diseases and cancer (TUM). The decomposition of LE gain was realized with software Epidat, using the Pollard’s method. Results The overall LE gain during the period between two three-years periods was 6.7 years for males, with a major gain between 65-89, and 4.5 years for females, mainly improved between 75-89, <1 year for both sexes. The major gain (2.6 years) was attributable to the reduction of mortality for CVS, followed by TUM (1.76 in males and 0.83 in females) and RESP (0.4 in males; 0.1 in females). The major loss of years of LE was attributable to INF (-0.15 in females; -0.07 in males) and lung cancer in females (-0.13), for which the opposite result was observed for males (gain of 0.62 years of LE). Conclusions During the study period (1987-2015) the gain in LE was major for males. To the reduction of mortality for CVS have contributed to the tempestuous treatment of acute CVS events and secondary CVS prevention. For TUM the result is attributable to the adherence of population to oncologic screening programmes. The excess of mortality for INF that lead to the loss of LE can be attributed to the passage from ICD-9 to ICD-10 in 2003 (higher sensibility of ICD-10) and to the diffusion of multi-drug resistant bacteria, which lead to elevated mortality in these years. Key messages The gain in LE during the period the 1987-2015 was higher in males. The major contribution to gain in LE was due to a reduction of mortality for CVS diseases.


2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANK TROVATO ◽  
NILS B. HEYEN

Over the course of the 20th century the sex differential in life expectancy at birth in the industrialized countries has widened considerably in favour of women. Starting in the early 1970s, the beginning of a reversal in the long-term pattern of this differential has been noted in some high-income countries. This study documents a sustained pattern of narrowing of this measure into the later part of the 1990s for six of the populations that comprise the G7 countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, England and Wales (as representative of the United Kingdom) and USA. For Japan, a persistence of widening sex differences in survival is noted. The sex differences in life expectancy are decomposed over roughly three decades (early 1970s to late 1990s) from the point of view of four major cause-of-death categories: circulatory diseases, cancers, accidents/violence/suicide, and ‘other’ (residual) causes. In the six countries where the sex gap has narrowed, this has resulted primarily from reduced sex differences in circulatory disease mortality, and secondarily from reduced differences in male and female death rates due to accidents, violence and suicide combined. In some of the countries sex differentials in cancer mortality have been converging lately, and this has also contributed to a narrowing of the difference in life expectancy. In Japan, males have been less successful in reducing their survival disadvantage in relation to Japanese women with regard to circulatory disease and cancer; and in the case of accidents/violence/suicide, male death rates increased during the 1990s. These trends explain the divergent pattern of the sex difference in life expectation in Japan as compared with the other G7 nations.


Author(s):  
Bal Kishan Gulati ◽  
Damodar Sahu ◽  
Anil Kumar ◽  
M. V. Vardhana Rao

Background: Life expectancy is a statistical measure to depict average life span a person is expected to live at a given age under given age-specific mortality rates. Cause-elimination life table measures potential gain in life expectancy after elimination of a specific disease. The present study aims to estimate potential gain in life expectancy by gender in urban India after complete and partial elimination of ten leading causes of deaths using secondary data of medical certification of cause of death (MCCD) for the year 2015.Methods: Life table method was used for estimating potential gain after eliminating diseases to the tune of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%.Results: Maximum gain in life expectancy at birth estimated from complete elimination of diseases of the circulatory system (11.1 years in males versus 13.1 years in females); followed by certain infectious and parasitic diseases (2.2  versus 2.1 years); diseases of the respiratory system (2.2 versus 2.1); injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes (1.1 versus 0.7); neoplasms (0.9 versus 1.0); endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases (0.8 versus 0.9); diseases of the digestive system (0.8 versus 0.4); diseases of the genitourinary system (0.6 versus 0.6); diseases of the nervous system (0.4 versus 0.4); and diseases of blood & blood forming organs and certain disorders involving the immune mechanism (0.2 versus 0.3 years).Conclusions: Elimination of the circulatory diseases resulted into maximum gain in life expectancy. These findings may have implications in setting up health goals, allocating resources and launching tailor-made health programmes.


2001 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Trovato ◽  
N. M. Lalu

A number of industrialized nations have recently experienced some degrees of constriction in their long-standing sex differentials in life expectancy at birth. In this study we examine this phenomenon in the context of Canada’s regions between 1971 and 1991: Atlantic (Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island); Quebec, Ontario, and the West (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest Territories). Decomposition analysis based on multiple decrement life tables is applied to address three questions: (1) Are there regional differentials in the degree of narrowing in the sex gap in life expectancy? (2) What is the relative contribution of major causes of death to observed sex differences in average length of life within and across regions? (3) How do the contributions of cause-of-death components vary across regions to either widen or narrow the sex gap in survival? It is shown that the magnitude of the sex gap is not uniform across the regions, though the differences are not large. The most important contributors to a narrowing of the sex gap in life expectancy are heart disease and external types of mortality (i.e., accidents, violence, and suicide), followed by lung cancer and other types of chronic conditions. In substantive terms these results indicate that over time men have been making sufficient gains in these causes of death as to narrow some of the gender gap in overall survival. Regions show similarity in these effects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
H Brønnum-Hansen ◽  
E Foverskov ◽  
I Andersen

Abstract Background The state old-age pension in Denmark is adjusted in line with the projected increasing life expectancy without taking social inequality in health and life expectancy into account. The purpose of the study was to estimate income disparities in life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) at age 50. Methods By linking nationwide register data on income and mortality each individual at any age was divided into equivalised disposable income quartiles and life tables were constructed for each quartile. Data from the Danish Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) was linked to register data providing access to information on respondents equivalised disposable income. Finally, data from the life tables were combined with prevalence on activity limitations by income quartiles from SHARE to estimate DFLE by Sullivan’s method. Differences in DFLE were investigated and decomposed into contributions from mortality and disability effects. Results A clear social gradient was seen for life expectancy as well as DFLE. Thus, life expectancy at age 50 differed between the highest and lowest income quartile by 8.0 years for men and 5.0 years for women. The difference in DFLE was 11.8 and 10.3 years for men and women, respectively. For men the mortality effect from the decomposition contributed by 4.1 years to the difference of 11.8 years in DFLE and 3.9 years to the difference in expected years with disability of 3.8 years while the disability effect contributed by 7.7 years. Conclusions The study quantifies social inequality in health in Denmark. Although income inequality in life expectancy and DFLE can partly be explained by loss of income due to chronic diseases, one would expect a welfare state to provide better financial security for citizens with health problems. Furthermore, the marked social disparity when approaching retirement age is questioning the fairness of implementing a pension scheme independently of socioeconomic position. Key messages Disability-free life expectancy differs between income quartiles by more than 10 years. Pension age follows the projected increasing life expectancy independently of socioeconomic position. This seems unfair.


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