Decomposing change in life expectancy: A bouquet of formulas in honor of Nathan Keyfitz's 90th birthday

James W. Vaupel*, Vladimir Canudas-Romo

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

146 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We extend Nathan Keyfitz's research on continuous change in life expectancy over time by presenting and proving a new formula for decomposing such change. The formula separates change in life expectancy over time into two terms. The first term captures the general effect of reduction in death rates at all ages, and the second term captures the effect of heterogeneity in the pace of improvement in mortality at different ages. We extend the formula to decompose change in life expectancy into age-specific and cause-specific components, and apply the methods to analyze changes in life expectancy in Sweden and Japan.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)201-216
Number of pages16
JournalDemography
Volume40
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2003
Externally publishedYes

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Decomposing change in life expectancy: A bouquet of formulas in honor of Nathan Keyfitz's 90th birthday'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this