Official population statistics and the Human Mortality Database estimates of populations aged 80+ in Germany and nine other European countries

Dmitri A. Jdanov, Rembrandt D. Scholz and Vladimir M. Shkolnikov
Additional contact information
Dmitri A. Jdanov: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Rembrandt D. Scholz: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Vladimir M. Shkolnikov: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

No WP-2005-010, MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

Abstract: A systematic comparison of the Human Mortality Database and official estimates of populations aged 80+ is presented. We consider statistical series for East and West Germany and also series for Denmark, England and Wales, France, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland. The Human Mortality Database (HMD, www.mortality.org) methodology re-lies on the methods of extinct and almost extinct generations. HMD estimates are precise if the quality of death data is high and the migration among the elderly is negligible. The comparisons between the HMD and the official populations are not fully appropriate for the 1990s since the HMD calculations are related to official population estimates. A significant overestimation of the male population aged 80+ and especially 90+ between the censuses of 1970 and 1987 was found in West Germany. The relative surplus of men aged 90+ increased from 5 to 20 percent, which expressed in absolute numbers indicates an increase from 2 to 10 thousand. In 1971-1987 the of-ficial death rates have fallen dramatically to implausibly low values. In 1987-88 death rates based on the official populations suddenly jumped to the HMD death rates due to the census re-estimation. In the 1990s an accelerated decrease in male death rates has resumed. For other coun-tries, the relative and absolute deviations from the HMD estimates were especially high in Rus-sia, Hungary, and England and Wales. Regression analysis reveals common factors of the rela-tive deviation from the HMD populations. The deviation tends to decrease with time, increase with age, be higher during inter-census periods than in census years, and to decrease after the introduction of population registers. (Key words: aging; elderly; population estimates; quality of statistics)

Keywords: ageing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2005
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mortality.org (text/html)
https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2005-010.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2005-010

DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2005-010

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Wilhelm ().