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Dissecting the compression of mortality in Switzerland, 1876-2005

Authors:
Karen Siu Lan Cheung at The University of Hong Kong
Karen Siu Lan Cheung
Jean-Marie Robine at French Institute of Health and Medical Research
Jean-Marie Robine
Fred Michel Paccaud at Lausanne University Hospital
Fred Michel Paccaud
Alfio Marazzi at University of Lausanne
Alfio Marazzi
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This paper aims to examine changes in common longevity and variability of the adult life span, and attempts to answer whether or not the compression of mortality continues in Switzerland in the years 1876-2005. The results show that the negative relationships between the large increase in the adult modal age at death, observed at least from the 1920s, and the decrease in the standard deviation of the ages at deaths occurring above it, illustrate a significant compression of adult mortality. Typical adult longevity increased by about 10% during the last fifty years in Switzerland, and adult heterogeneity in the age at death decreased in the same proportion. This analysis has not found any evidence suggesting that we are approaching longevity limits in term of modal or even maximum life spans. It ascertains a slowdown in the reduction of adult heterogeneity in longevity, already observed in Japan and other low mortality countries.
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... The transformations in the age pattern of mortality in conjunction with mortality decline results in mortality compression, a process in which deaths are concentrated in a narrow age interval of age at death (Cheung et al. 2005;Kannisto 2000Kannisto , 2001Myers/Manton 1984;Thatcher et al. 2010). The phenomenon of mortality compression and associated changes in other related phenomena such as variability in age at death or degree of inter-individual variability in age at death (Shkolnikov et al. 2003: 306) and rectangularization of the survival curve (Wilmoth/ Horiuchi 1999: 475) are signifi cant determinants of the advances in mortality transition (Cheung et al. 2009;Kannisto 2000;Lynch/Brown 2001;Myers/Manton 1984;Nusselder/Mackenbach 1996;Paccaud et al. 1998;Wilmoth/Horiuchi 1999). Over the historical trends of demographic transition of developed nations, there is consensus among researchers that mortality compression is a fundamental demographic process for comprehending the progress of mortality transition (Bohk-Ewald et al. 2017;Kannisto 2000;Robine 2001;Smits/Monden 2009;Thatcher et al. 2010). ...
... Improvements in these mortality indicators as well as structural changes in disease pattern indicate that the current phase of mortality transition is signifi cantly modulated through improved survival at adult and old (60 and above) ages (Horiuchi/Wilmoth 1998), despite the fact that IMR decline played a dominant role in the past in India (Bhat/Navaneetham 1991;Navaneetham 1993). Edwards/Tuljapurkar (2005: 647) acknowledge that higher-order moments (Variance, Skewness, and Kurtosis) of distribution of age at death better demonstrate differentials in mortality and variability in age at death that contribute to the process of mortality compression than fi rst-order moments (e 0 or Mean) do (Aburto/van Raalte 2018;Canudas-Romo 2008;Chaurasia 2010;Cheung et al. 2009;Missov et al. 2015;Németh 2017;Shkolnikov et al. 2003;Wilmoth/Horiuchi 1999). Developed nations display a low disparity in the lifespan (e † ), which is average remaining life expectancy at the ages when death occurs, and a higher threshold age, which separates early deaths from late deaths, though not restricted to old age (Zhang/Vaupel 2009: 726), as the characteristics of increasing homogeneity in old ages (Cheung/Robine 2007;Nusselder/Mackenbach 1996;Thatcher et al. 2010). ...
... This interpolation method assumes that the distribution pattern of grouped data is a valid indication of the distribution pattern within groups, maintaining the original data and the group totals at the cost of less smoothness (Popoff/Judson 2004: 696, 702). Applying this method, we derived single-year distribution of age at death between 10 and 110 years which was smoothened using the cubic spline method (Cheung et al. 2009;Kostaki/Panousis 2001). Henceforth, the single-year, smoothened distribution of age at death between 10 and 110 years is referred to as the distribution of age at death or age at death which was used to examine mortality compression and variability in age at death. ...
Mortality Compression and Variability in Age at Death in India
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  • Oct 2020
The global rise of life expectancy at birth has attracted worldwide interest , especially in understanding the pace of mortality transition in developing countries. In this study, we assess the progress of mortality transition in India during four decades between 1970 and 2013. We estimate measures of mortality compression and variability in age at death to assess the trends and patterns in mortality compression for India as a whole and its twelve biggest states. The results reveal an unequivocal convergence pattern in mortality compression across the states underpinned by the reduction in premature mortality and emerging homogeneity in mortality. Results by gender show that women are more homogenous in their mortality across the country because of an explicit reduction in the Gini coeffi cients at age 10 by the age group of 15-29 years. Mortality compression has changed in recent decades because of the increased survival of women in their reproductive ages, which marked a distinct phase of mortality transition in India. The pace of mortality transition , however, varies; adult mortality decline was greater than senescent mortality decline. These results show that India has passed the middle stage of mortality transition and has entered an early phase of low mortality.
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... Then, premature mortality designates the transition region between childhood and adult deaths. This identification of the adult modal age at death has been used to understand the development of mortality across the twentieth century (Bongaarts 2005;Cheung et al. 2005Cheung et al. , 2009Canudas-Romo 2008, 2010Cheung and Robine 2007;Horiuchi et al. 2013;Kannisto 2000Kannisto , 2001Ouellette and Bourbeau 2011;Wilmoth and Horiuchi 1999;Wilmoth and Robine 2003). Pearson (1897) evaluated the problem from a statistical point of view: taking Lexis' idea even further and considering the distribution of deaths to be composed of five functions with different degrees of skewness. ...
... During the first half of the twentieth century, in low-mortality countries, a compression in a smaller age interval of the adult mortality distribution was observed (Cheung et al. 2005(Cheung et al. , 2008(Cheung et al. , 2009Cheung and Robine 2007;Fries 1983;Kannisto 2001;Wilmoth and Horiuchi 1999). After a period of strong compression, developed countries experienced a shift of the late modal age at death (Bongaarts 2005;1900 1940 Cheung and Robine 2007;Kannisto 1996). ...
... For adult mortality, a general shift in the late mode to the right of the distribution was found. The conclusions about infant, childhood and adult mortality are consistent with what is already known about the trends of these components (Bongaarts 2005;Canudas-Romo 2008;Cheung et al. 2005Cheung et al. , 2008Cheung et al. , 2009Edwards and Tuljapurkar 2005;Fries 1983;Kannisto 2001;Vaupel et al. 2011;Willets 2004;Yashin et al. 2001). During the last century, the accidental hump disappeared for most of the countries, but the premature deaths across youth and the first part of adulthood continue to exist, even if with a small incidence (greater flattening of the deaths distribution in its middle part). ...
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  • Mar 2021
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... Two demographic indicators, the adult modal age at death, M, and the standard deviation above the mode, SD(M +), have increasingly been used in the last decades for monitoring changes in the distribution of deaths at older ages in low mortality countries (Brown et al. 2008(Brown et al. , 2012Cheung and Robine 2007;Cheung et al. 2005Cheung et al. , 2008Cheung et al. , 2009Diaconu et al. 2016;Kannisto 2007;Ouellette and Bourbeau 2011;Ouellette et al. 2012a, b;Robine and Cheung 2008;Thatcher et al. 2010), where the extension of the length of human life is primarily due to improvements in oldage survival (Meslé and Vallin 2006;Vallin and Meslé 2001;Wilmoth et al. 2010). Under a given mortality regime, M represents the most common (i.e., frequent) or 'typical' length of life among adults. ...
... For this reason, in many high-income countries, M remained constant or increased slightly over most of the first half of the twentieth century, when the increase in the length of human life was mainly due to survival im-provements among infants, children and young adults. However, throughout the second half of the twentieth century, mortality at older ages declined more rapidly than at younger ages, and M followed a steep upward trend (Canudas-Romo 2010; Cheung and Robine 2007;Cheung et al. 2009;Kannisto 2001;Office of National Statistics 2012). Another interesting feature of M was highlighted in a later study by Horiuchi and colleagues (2013), who provide empirical evidence and a mathematical proof that when mortality shifts to older ages, M increases at the exact pace as the old-age mortality shift while conditional life expectancy at some early old age, i.e. 50, 65, 75, increases more slowly. ...
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... The survival curve is the direct product of the death curve, and many scholars have tried to model both of them (see, for example, [35,[48][49][50][51][52], etc.). Cheung et al. [53] described three properties of the survival curve: ...
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... Przegląd empirycznych badań dotyczących koncepcji kompresji umieralności i rektangularyzacji krzywej przeżycia oraz badań korzystających z narzędzi pomiaru przedstawionych w tym artykule, pozwolił na ustalenie, iż dotychczasowa literatura polsko-i anglojęzyczna obejmuje jedynie 11 krajów europejskich: Szwecję (Wilmoth, Horiuchi, 1999;Kannisto, 2000;Canudas-Romo, 2008, 2010Thatcher i in., 2010;Yue, 2012;Rossi, Rousson, Paccaud, 2013;Ebeling i in., 2013;Schalkwijk, Koopman, Ghariq, de Beer, van Bodegom, Westendorp, 2016;Ebeling i in., 2018), Francję (Hill, 1993;Kannisto, 2000;Robine, 2001;Kannisto, 2007;Canudas-Romo, 2008;Thatcher i in., 2010;Ouellette, Bourbeau, 2011;Ebeling i in., 2013;Rossi i in., 2013;Schalkwijk i in., 2016), Szwajcarię (Paccaud, Pinto, Marazzi, Mili, 1998;Cheung, Robine, Paccaud, Marazzi, 2009;Kannisto, 2000;Thatcher i in., 2010;Rousson, Paccaud, 2010;Rossi i in., 2013;Schalkwijk i in., 2016), Wielką Brytanię, chociaż część badań dotyczy jedynie obszaru Anglii i Walii (Hill, 1993;Kannisto, 2000;Canudas-Romo, 2008;Thatcher i in., 2010;Rossi i in., 2013;Schalkwijk i in., 2016), Holandię (Nusselder, Mackenbach, 1996Nusselder, 2007;Kannisto, 2000;Rossi i in., 2013;Engelaer, Bodegom, Kirkwood, Westendorp, 2014), Włochy (Canudas-Romo, 2008Thatcher i in., 2010;Rossi i in., 2013;Ebeling i in., 2018), Finlandię (Kannisto, 2000(Kannisto, , 2007Rossi i in., 2013), Danię (Rossi i in., 2013;Ebeling i in., 2018), Norwegię (Rossi i in., 2013), Hiszpanię (Debón, Martínez-Ruiz, Montes, 2012) i Polskę (Wróblewska, 2017). Widoczna jest dysproporcja w liczbie literatury poświęconej poszczególnym krajom europejskim, w tym pojedyncze źródła dla Norwegii, Hiszpanii i Polski. ...
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