Abstract

Human population health is generally monitored by average mortality levels, typically in terms of life expectancies or age-standardised death rates, which mask substantial variation in length of life. Variation in ages at death, captured by a metric of lifespan inequality, should be used to supplement measures of average longevity when comparing or monitoring societies and population subgroups. Although lifespan inequality has historically been strongly inversely correlated with life expectancy, we are beginning to see this relationship reversed, resulting in positive correlation in some countries or subnational populations. Often these changes reflect midlife mortality crises with roots in stratified education and wealth. In this talk I will present empirical examples from around the developed world, pressing the case to monitor lifespan inequality.

Biography

Alyson van Raalte is a demographer with a PhD in public health from Erasmus University Rotterdam. She leads the research project LIFEINEQ at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, funded by a starting grant from the European Research Council. Her research interests are mortality inequalities, and gaining a deeper understanding of the age patterning of mortality.