Rise, stagnation, and rise of Danish women’s life expectancy

Health conditions change from year to year, with a general tendency in many countries for improvement. These conditions also change from one birth cohort to another: some generations suffer more adverse events in childhood, smoke more heavily, eat poorer diets, etc., than generations born earlier or...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 113; no. 15; pp. 4015 - 4020
Main Authors Lindahl-Jacobsen, Rune, Rau, Roland, Jeune, Bernard, Canudas-Romo, Vladimir, Lenart, Adam, Christensen, Kaare, Vaupel, James W.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 12.04.2016
National Acad Sciences
Subjects
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Cause of Death
Denmark
Female
Humans
Life expectancy
Life Expectancy - trends
Longevity
Population Dynamics - trends
Probability
Social Sciences
Survival analysis
Sweden
Women
Denmark
life expectancy
interwar Danish women
cohort effects
decomposition
period effects
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Summary:Health conditions change from year to year, with a general tendency in many countries for improvement. These conditions also change from one birth cohort to another: some generations suffer more adverse events in childhood, smoke more heavily, eat poorer diets, etc., than generations born earlier or later. Because it is difficult to disentangle period effects from cohort effects, demographers, epidemiologists, actuaries, and other population scientists often disagree about cohort effects’ relative importance. In particular, some advocate forecasts of life expectancy based on period trends; others favor forecasts that hinge on cohort differences. We use a combination of age decomposition and exchange of survival probabilities between countries to study the remarkable recent history of female life expectancy in Denmark, a saga of rising, stagnating, and now again rising lifespans. The gap between female life expectancy in Denmark vs. Sweden grew to 3.5 y in the period 1975–2000. When we assumed that Danish women born 1915–1945 had the same survival probabilities as Swedish women, the gap remained small and roughly constant. Hence, the lower Danish life expectancy is caused by these cohorts and is not attributable to period effects.
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Reviewers: M.M., London School of Economics; and S.H.P., University of Pennsylvania.
Contributed by James W. Vaupel, February 24, 2016 (sent for review November 4, 2014; reviewed by Michael Murphy and Samuel H. Preston)
Author contributions: R.L.-J., R.R., B.J., V.C.-R., A.L., K.C., and J.W.V. designed research; R.L.-J., R.R., K.C., and J.W.V. performed research; R.L.-J., R.R., and J.W.V. analyzed data; and R.L.-J., R.R., and J.W.V. wrote the paper.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1602783113