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Population Health Metrics
Published in: Population Health Metrics 1/2016

Open Access 01-12-2016 | Research

Disparities in length of life across developed countries: measuring and decomposing changes over time within and between country groups

Authors: Sergey Timonin, Vladimir M. Shkolnikov, Domantas Jasilionis, Pavel Grigoriev, Dmitry A. Jdanov, David A. Leon

Published in: Population Health Metrics | Issue 1/2016

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Abstract

Background

Over the past half century the global tendency for improvements in longevity has been uneven across countries. This has resulted in widening of inter-country disparities in life expectancy. Moreover, the pattern of divergence appears to be driven in part by processes at the level of country groupings defined in geopolitical terms. A systematic quantitative analysis of this phenomenon has not been possible using demographic decomposition approaches as these have not been suitably adapted for this purpose. In this paper we present an elaboration of conventional decomposition techniques to provide a toolkit for analysis of the inter-country variance, and illustrate its use by analyzing trends in life expectancy in developed countries over a 40-year period.

Methods

We analyze trends in the population-weighted variance of life expectancy at birth across 36 developed countries and three country groups over the period 1970–2010. We have modified existing decomposition approaches using the stepwise replacement algorithm to compute age components of changes in the total variance as well as variance between and within groups of Established Market Economies (EME), Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and the Former Soviet Union (FSU). The method is generally applicable to the decomposition of temporal changes in any aggregate index based on a set of populations.

Results

The divergence in life expectancy between developed countries has generally increased over the study period. This tendency dominated from the beginning of 1970s to the early 2000s, and reversed only after 2005. From 1970 to 2010, the total standard deviation of life expectancy increased from 2.0 to 5.6 years among men and from 1.0 to 3.6 years among women. This was determined by the between-group effects due to polarization between the EME and the FSU. The latter contrast was largely fueled by the long-term health crisis in Russia. With respect to age, the increase in the overall divergence was attributable to between-country differences in mortality changes at ages 15–64 years compared to those aged 65 and older. The within-group variance increased, especially among women. This change was mostly produced by growing mortality differences at ages 65 and older.

Conclusions

From the early 1970s to the mid-2000s, the strong divergence in life expectancy across developed countries was largely determined by the between-group variance and mortality polarization linked to the East–West geopolitical division.
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
We selected all HMD countries classified as developed by the UN for which data were available at least since 1970. Data series for Slovenia and Israel were excluded since they begin after 1970. For thirteen populations which had shorter data series, 2009 (twelve populations) or 2008 (one population) was used as the last data point. For more details, see Appendices 2 and 3.
 
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Metadata
Title
Disparities in length of life across developed countries: measuring and decomposing changes over time within and between country groups
Authors
Sergey Timonin
Vladimir M. Shkolnikov
Domantas Jasilionis
Pavel Grigoriev
Dmitry A. Jdanov
David A. Leon
Publication date
01-12-2016
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
Population Health Metrics / Issue 1/2016
Electronic ISSN: 1478-7954
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12963-016-0094-0

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