Volume 31 - Article 51 | Pages 1503–1524
Divergence without decoupling: Male and female life expectancy usually co-move
Abstract
Background: Divergence of male and female life expectancy is a well-documented phenomenon. Co-movement is a heretofore-neglected aspect of changes in male and female mortality.
Objective: We develop a new framework for life expectancy sex differentials in time series, using co-movement/anti-movement and convergence/divergence.
Methods: We apply this framework to the Human Mortality Database (HMD), assessing co-movement between male and female life expectancy with the nonparametric test of Goodman and Grunfeld (1961).
Results: For every country in the HMD (except three with short spans of data), male and female mortality statistically co-move. This applies even in cases, including ones such as Russia that are well-discussed in the literature, that show extreme divergence between the sexes. The results are reasonably robust to subsetting with a 25-year time-window for all countries.
Conclusions: Male and female life expectancy co-move even when the life expectancy sex differential increases. The sex divergence in life expectancy needs to be (re-)considered in light of the fact that male and female life expectancy usually co-move, reflecting overall societal factors.
Author’s Affiliation
- Andrew Noymer - University of California, Irvine, United States of America EMAIL
- Viola Van - University of California, Irvine, United States of America EMAIL
Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research
Summertime, and the livin’ is easy: Winter and summer pseudoseasonal life expectancy in the United States
Volume 37 - Article 45
Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research
The impact of population heterogeneity on the age trajectory of neonatal mortality: A study of US births 2008–2014
Volume 53 - Article 7
| Keywords:
frailty,
heterogeneity,
heterogeneity,
infant mortality,
mortality,
mortality selection,
mortality selection,
neonatal mortality,
United States of America
Modifying model life tables to derive mortality curves for countries with excess mortality
Volume 53 - Article 2
| Keywords:
armed conflict,
Colombia,
homicide,
life expectancy,
probability of dying,
road traffic accidents,
violence,
war
Can we estimate crisis death tolls by subtracting total population estimates? A critical review and appraisal
Volume 52 - Article 23
| Keywords:
conflict demography,
death tolls,
demographic methods,
historical demography,
mortality,
mortality crises,
mortality estimates,
population balance
Life expectancy by religious affiliation in Finland 1972–2020
Volume 52 - Article 17
| Keywords:
Finland,
life expectancy,
register data,
religious affiliation
The use of mobile phone surveys for rapid mortality monitoring: A national study in Burkina Faso
Volume 52 - Article 16
| Keywords:
age-specific mortality patterns,
data quality,
Demographic Health Surveys,
direct estimation,
health and security crises,
low-and-middle-income countries,
mobile phones,
mortality,
sample selection,
surveys,
under-five mortality
Cited References: 46
Download to Citation Manager
PubMed
Google Scholar