IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/vid/yearbk/v23y2025i1oid0x004035cd.html

Life tables under current risk composition based on observed, fixed characteristics

Author

Listed:
  • Magdalena Muszyńska-Spielauer
  • Tim Riffe

Abstract

We examine how differences in risk composition between the overall synthetic life table cohort versus one that would be living under current mortality conditions influence life table mortality statistics. We propose formulas (i) for adjusting the force of mortality and life table statistics, eliminating heterogeneity introduced by the lagged risk composition of the synthetic cohort based on observed, fixed characteristics; and (ii) for decomposing the difference between two statistics under current risk composition, life expectancy (LE) and average lifespan deprivation (Dep) into the effects of differences in composition and of the summary mortality statistics of the subgroups. We use data on educational attainment in Denmark in 1991–1995 and 2011–2015 to illustrate these methods. The empirical example shows that the difference between the “standard” LE and the one under current risk composition is noteworthy, but the gap for Dep is negligible. Additionally, both the increase in the LEs of the educational groups and the shift in the composition of the population due to educational expansion contributed to the increase in the LE under current educational composition of both sexes. The observed decrease in Dep over the study years for both sexes resulted predominantly from the decrease in Dep of educational groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Magdalena Muszyńska-Spielauer & Tim Riffe, 2025. "Life tables under current risk composition based on observed, fixed characteristics," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 23(1), pages 157-174.
    • Handle: RePEc:vid:yearbk:v:23:y:2025:i:1:oid:0x004035cd
    DOI: 10.1553/p-4pz2-cebp
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://austriaca.at/0xc1aa5576_0x004035cd.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1553/p-4pz2-cebp?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vladimir Shkolnikov & Evgeny Andreev & Zhen Zhang & James Oeppen & James Vaupel, 2011. "Losses of Expected Lifetime in the United States and Other Developed Countries: Methods and Empirical Analyses," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(1), pages 211-239, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Henrik Brønnum-Hansen & Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos Espiñeira & Camila Perera & Ingelise Andersen, 2023. "Trends in mortality patterns in two countries with different welfare models: comparisons between Cuba and Denmark 1955–2020," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 1-28, June.
    2. Oscar E Fernandez & Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez, 2022. "Life span inequality as a function of the moments of the deaths distribution: Connections and insights," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-17, January.
    3. Duncan Gillespie & Meredith Trotter & Shripad Tuljapurkar, 2014. "Divergence in Age Patterns of Mortality Change Drives International Divergence in Lifespan Inequality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 1003-1017, June.
    4. Suryakant Yadav, 2021. "Progress of Inequality in Age at Death in India: Role of Adult Mortality," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(3), pages 523-550, July.
    5. Ahbab Mohammad Fazle Rabbi & Stefano Mazzuco, 2021. "Mortality Forecasting with the Lee–Carter Method: Adjusting for Smoothing and Lifespan Disparity," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 37(1), pages 97-120, March.
    6. José M. Aburto & Alyson A. van Raalte, 2017. "Lifespan dispersion in times of life expectancy fluctuation: the case of Central and Eastern Europe," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2017-018, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    7. Aburto, José Manuel & Kristensen, Frederikke Frehr & Sharp, Paul, 2021. "Black-white disparities during an epidemic: Life expectancy and lifespan disparity in the US, 1980–2000," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    8. Soumya Pal & Abhishek Singh & Kaushalendra Kumar, 2022. "Inequality in length of life in India: an empirical analysis," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 315-340, September.
    9. Alyson van Raalte & Pekka Martikainen & Mikko Myrskylä, 2014. "Lifespan Variation by Occupational Class: Compression or Stagnation Over Time?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(1), pages 73-95, February.
    10. Fernandez, Oscar E. & Beltrán-Sánchez, Hiram, 2015. "The entropy of the life table: A reappraisal," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 26-45.
    11. Dalkhat M. Ediev, 2013. "Decompression of Period Old-Age Mortality: When Adjusted for Bias, the Variance in the Ages at Death Shows Compression," Mathematical Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 137-154, July.
    12. Rob Clark & Kara Snawder, 2020. "A Cross-National Analysis of Lifespan Inequality, 1950–2015: Examining the Distribution of Mortality Within Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 705-732, April.
    13. Dmitri A. Jdanov & Vladimir M. Shkolnikov, 2014. "Assessment of cross-sectional and longitudinal components of a difference with an algorithm of contour replacement," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2014-010, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    14. Pal, Soumya, 2022. "Length of Life Inequality in India: An Empirical Analysis," SocArXiv 3kwtq, Center for Open Science.
    15. Dmitri A. Jdanov & Vladimir M. Shkolnikov & Alyson A. van Raalte & Evgeny M. Andreev, 2017. "Decomposing Current Mortality Differences Into Initial Differences and Differences in Trends: The Contour Decomposition Method," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(4), pages 1579-1602, August.
    16. Wijesinghe, M.D.J.W. & Cameron, Michael P. & Olivia, Susan & Oxley, Les, 2025. "State level differences in life expectancy and lifespan inequality: Is it a matter of socioeconomic inequalities?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    17. Alyson A. van Raalte & Pekka Martikainen & Mikko Myrskylä, 2012. "Lifespan variation by occupational class: compression or stagnation over time?," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2012-010, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    18. Aburto, José Manuel & di Lego, Vanessa & Riffe, Tim & Kashyap, Ridhi & van Raalte, Alyson & Torrisi, Orsola, 2023. "A global assessment of the impact of violence on lifetime uncertainty," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118196, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Pulok, Mohammad Habibullah, 2012. "Revisiting Health and Income Inequality Relationship:Evidence from Developing Countries," MPRA Paper 39766, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Magdalena Muszyńska-Spielauer & Alyson van Raalte & Isaac Sasson & Yukiko Asada, 2025. "From Lifespan Inequality to Lifespan Inequity," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 180(3), pages 1449-1473, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:vid:yearbk:v:23:y:2025:i:1:oid:0x004035cd. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bernhard Rengs (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/vid/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.