Comparative Mortality Declines

1
Comparative Mortality Declines

• Some ideas for discussion
• Offered by J. Wilmoth for Workshop on Adult
  Mortality in the Developing WorldMarin County,
  California, 9-11 July 2004

2
Comparative in what sense?
3
International Comparisons

• More developed countries
• Early industrializers
• More recent arrivals
• Less developed countries
• Middle income
• Low income
• Very low income

4
Characteristics of Mortality Decline

• Timing or speed
• Variability of experience
• Population subgroups
• Regions

5
What aspects of timing?

• Overall speed of decline in death rates, or rise
  in life expectancy
• Gradual or sudden?

6
Which subgroups to compare?

• Differences by age (child vs. adult vs. elderly)
• Differences by sex (men vs. women)
• Differences by social class, race/ethnicity,
  educational attainment, etc.

7
Comparing regional changes

• Convergence or divergence over time?
• For countries within world regions, or for
  provinces within countries

8
Different routes to low mortality

• Source Preston and Haines, Fatal Years Child
  Mortality in Late Nineteenth-Century America,
  1991.