Five period measures of longevity

John Bongaarts
Additional contact information
John Bongaarts: Population Council

Demographic Research, 2005, vol. 13, issue 21, 547-558

Abstract: This study provides a summary of recently proposed alternatives period measures of "longevity" and assesses whether empirical differences between these measures are consistent with predictions from analytic studies. Particular attention is given to the tempo effect. Three of the five period measures are virtually equal to one another in a simulated population in which mortality follows a Gompertz model with a constant rate of improvement. Similar results are observed among females in Denmark, England and Wales and Sweden in the last quarter century. However, these three measures differ substantially from the conventional period life expectancy when mortality changes over time. These findings are consistent with theoretical analysis by Bongaarts and Feeney (2002, 2003, 2005) which demonstrated that this deviation is caused by a tempo effect whose size varies with the rate of change in mortality.

Keywords: longevity; life expectancy; period; measures; tempo distortion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol13/21/13-21.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:demres:v:13:y:2005:i:21

DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2005.13.21

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Demographic Research from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Editorial Office ().