Changes in the age-at-death distribution in four low mortality countries: A nonparametric approach

Nadine Ouellette and Robert Bourbeau
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Nadine Ouellette: Université de Montréal
Robert Bourbeau: Université de Montréal

Demographic Research, 2011, vol. 25, issue 19, 595-628

Abstract: Since the beginning of the twentieth century, important transformations have occurred in the age-at-death distribution within human populations. We propose a flexible nonparametric smoothing approach based on P-splines to refine the monitoring of these changes. Using data from the Human Mortality Database for four low mortality countries, namely Canada (1921-2007), France (1920-2009), Japan (1947-2009), and the USA (1945-2007), we find that the general scenario of compression of mortality no longer describes appropriately some of the recent adult mortality trends recorded. Indeed, reductions in the variability of age at death above the mode have stopped since the early 1990s in Japan and since the early 2000s for Canadian, US, and French women, while their respective modal age at death continued to increase. These findings provide additional support to the shifting mortality scenario, using an alternative method free from any assumption on the shape of the age-at-death distribution.

Keywords: shifting mortality; modal age of death; old-age mortality compression; P-spline smoothing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:demres:v:25:y:2011:i:19

DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2011.25.19

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