Insight into stagnating adult life expectancy: Analyzing cause of death patterns across socioeconomic groups

Abstract

This study analyzes the complexity of female longevity improvements. As socioeconomic status is found to influence health and mortality, we partition all individuals, at each age in every year, into five socioeconomic groups based on an affluence measure that combine an individual's income and wealth. We identify the particular socioeconomic groups that have been driving the standstill for Danish females at older ages. Within each socioeconomic group, we further analyze the cause of death patterns. The decline in life expectancy for Danish females is present for four out of five subgroups, however, with particular large decreases for the low-middle and middle-affluence groups. Cancers, smoking-related lung and bronchus causes, and other diseases particularly contribute to the stagnation. For four of the five socioeconomic groups only small cardiovascular improvement are experienced during the period of stagnating life expectancy compared to an equally long and subsequent period.

The slowdown in mortality improvement rates 2011–2017: a multi-country analysis

“…• Our analyses are consistent with suggestions that there are forces that could have contributed to the slowdown in mortality improvement rates before 2010 and additional forces that could have contributed after that date. More analyses of the health and socio-economic trends in each country and the differences between countries would help to clarify the potential drivers behind the historical trends and potential future trajectories: see, for example, the recent paper by Kallestrup-Lamb et al [35] which investigates the mortality improvement trend and cause of death patterns across socio economic groups for females in Denmark over the period 1985-2012.…”

Diverging Mortality Inequality Trends among Young and Old in the Netherlands*

“…Studies for other countries find that trends in inequality in mortality are driven by specific causes. For instance, Kallestrup-Lamb, Kjaergaard and Rosenskjold (2020) find that the stagnation in mortality of Danish elderly women between 1985 and 1995 was largely caused by an increasing mortality from cancers and lung-and bronchus-related causes. Similarly, in a study among the Norwegian population for more recent years, namely 2005-2015, Kinge et al (2019) find that the evolution of mortality from lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and dementia varied most across income groups.…”

Longevity Risk in Reinsurance and Equity Markets

“…We use data from Kjaergaard et al (2020), containing five affluence groups for both genders in the age interval 50 to 100 from 1985 to 2016. The five different groups are denoted group 1 (G1) to group 5 (G5), with G1 being the 20% least affluent and G5 the most.…”

“…The five different groups are denoted group 1 (G1) to group 5 (G5), with G1 being the 20% least affluent and G5 the most. In accordance with Kallestrup-Lamb et al (2020), we top-code the data at age 95 due to the small number of deaths at an advanced age. Furthermore, we smooth mortality rates for all ages using splines, in accordance with Wood (1994), and apply Hyndman et al (2012)'s unconstrained regression splines, which smooths the mortality rates so they increase monotonically with age.…”

“…The underlying indices follow mortality rates for five different socioeconomic groups, to which we apply the Li and Lee (2005) model. To measure adherence to a socioeconomic group, we use the newly developed affluence measure in Cairns et al (2019) based on data from Kjaergaard et al (2020). The affluence index, which allocates individuals based on data on income and wealth, is an attractive feature as both covariates are typically available to annuity providers, enabling them to quantify their own basis risk contingent on their annuity liabilities.…”