The Analysis of Mortality Changes In Selected European Countries in the Period 1960–2006

Demographic changes which took place in the 20th century clearly reveal progressive ageing of whole societies. This phenomenon influences the risk connected with calculating the products of insurance companies and pension funds, where calculated mortality is one of the most important factors. The paper presents the analysis of mortality changes in male and female populations in selected countries from Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) and from Western Europe (France, Italy, Spain and Sweden) in the period 19602006. The analysis of the mortality changes has been carried out with the use of variables proposed in 2007 by J. P. Morgan in his work Life Metrics A toolkit for measuring and managing longevity and mortality risks. The data used for the analysis have been obtained from www.mortality.org. The van Broekhoven algorithm has been applied for smoothing crude mortality rates across different ages. The analysis of mortality changes in selected European countries in the period 19602006 has shown considerable differences in the changes of initial mortality rate. Apart from obvious differences in male and female mortality, significant differences in the dynamics of mortality between Western and Central European countries were revealed. The most significant differences in the change of graduated initial mortality rate have been observed for people above 4045 from Central and Western European countries. The period of most striking disproportions in the change of graduated initial mortality rate were the years 19701990, which seems to be the result of the socioeconomic policy in Central European countries.