IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/dem/demres/v3y2000i1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Old-Age Mortality in Germany prior to and after Reunification

Author

Listed:
  • Arjan Gjonca

    (London School of Economics and Political Science)

  • Hilke Brockmann

    (Universität Bremen)

  • Heiner Maier

    (Max-Planck-Institut für Demografische Forschung)

Abstract

Recent trends in German life expectancy show a considerable increase. Most of this increase has resulted from decreasing mortality at older ages. Patterns of oldest old mortality (ages 80+) differed significantly between men and women as well as between East and West Germany. While West German oldest old mortality decreased since the mid 1970s, comparable decreases in East Germany did not become evident until the late 1980s. Yet, the East German mortality decline accelerated after German reunification in 1990, particularly among East German females, attesting to the plasticity of human life expectancy and the importance of late life events. Medical care, individual economic resources and life-style factors are discussed as potential determinants of the decline in old age mortality in Germany.

Suggested Citation

  • Arjan Gjonca & Hilke Brockmann & Heiner Maier, 2000. "Old-Age Mortality in Germany prior to and after Reunification," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 3(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:3:y:2000:i:1
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2000.3.1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol3/1/3-1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/DemRes.2000.3.1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kenneth Manton & Eric Stallard & Larry Corder, 1997. "Changes in the age dependence of mortality and disability: Cohort and other determinants," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(1), pages 135-157, February.
    2. Robert Fogel & Dora Costa, 1997. "A theory of technophysio evolution, with some implications for forecasting population, health care costs, and pension costs," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(1), pages 49-66, February.
    3. J. Pollard, 1988. "On the decomposition of changes in expectation of life and differentials in life expectancy," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(2), pages 265-276, May.
    4. Ritschl Albrecht, 1995. "Aufstieg und Niedergang der Wirtschaft der DDR: Ein Zahlenbild 1945-1989," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, De Gruyter, vol. 36(2), pages 11-46, December.
    5. John Wilmoth & Shiro Horiuchi, 1999. "Rectangularization revisited: Variability of age at death within human populations," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(4), pages 475-495, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tobias Vogt & Alyson van Raalte & Pavel Grigoriev & Mikko Myrskylä, 2017. "The German East-West Mortality Difference: Two Crossovers Driven by Smoking," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 1051-1071, June.
    2. Haan, Peter & Prowse, Victoria, 2014. "Longevity, life-cycle behavior and pension reform," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 178(P3), pages 582-601.
    3. Richard Verdugo, 2006. "Workers, workers’ productivity and the dependency ratio in Germany: analysis with implications for social policy," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 25(5), pages 547-565, December.
    4. Rembrandt D. Scholz & Heiner Maier, 2003. "German unification and the plasticity of mortality at older ages," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2003-031, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    5. Vogt, Tobias C. & Kluge, Fanny A., 2015. "Can public spending reduce mortality disparities? Findings from East Germany after reunification," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 5(C), pages 7-13.
    6. Markéta Pechholdová, 2009. "Results and observations from the reconstruction of continuous time series of mortality by cause of death," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 21(18), pages 535-568.
    7. Tobias Vogt & Fanny Annemarie Kluge, 2015. "Income sources and intergenerational transfers in different regimes," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(41), pages 1153-1164.
    8. Bambra, Clare & Smith, Katherine E. & Pearce, Jamie, 2019. "Scaling up: The politics of health and place," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 36-42.
    9. Michał Myck, 2011. "Policy challenges in Germany and Poland: what can we learn from the SHARE data," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 28.
    10. Marc Luy, 2006. "Mortality tempo-adjustment," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 15(21), pages 561-590.
    11. Pavel Grigoriev & Markéta Pechholdová, 2017. "Health Convergence Between East and West Germany as Reflected in Long-Term Cause-Specific Mortality Trends: To What Extent was it Due to Reunification?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 33(5), pages 701-731, December.
    12. Dora L. Costa, 2015. "Health and the Economy in the United States from 1750 to the Present," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(3), pages 503-570, September.
    13. Marc Luy, 2005. "The importance of mortality tempo-adjustment: theoretical and empirical considerations," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2005-035, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    14. Tobias C. Vogt & Alyson A. van Raalte & Pavel Grigoriev & Mikko Myrskylä, 2016. "German East-West mortality difference: two cross-overs driven by smoking," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2016-004, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    15. Alyson van Raalte & Pekka Martikainen & Mikko Myrskylä, 2014. "Lifespan Variation by Occupational Class: Compression or Stagnation Over Time?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(1), pages 73-95, February.
    16. Michael Mühlichen, 2019. "Avoidable Mortality in the German Baltic Sea Region Since Reunification: Convergence or Persistent Disparities?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(3), pages 609-637, July.
    17. Dennis M. Feehan, 2018. "Separating the Signal From the Noise: Evidence for Deceleration in Old-Age Death Rates," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(6), pages 2025-2044, December.
    18. Dora L. Costa & Joanna Lahey, 2003. "Becoming Oldest-Old: Evidence from Historical U.S. Data," NBER Working Papers 9933, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dora L. Costa & Joanna Lahey, 2003. "Becoming Oldest-Old: Evidence from Historical U.S. Data," NBER Working Papers 9933, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Fogel, Robert W, 2004. "Health, Nutrition, and Economic Growth," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 643-658, April.
    3. Hui Zheng, 2014. "Aging in the Context of Cohort Evolution and Mortality Selection," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(4), pages 1295-1317, August.
    4. Holger Strulik & Sebastian Vollmer, 2013. "Long-run trends of human aging and longevity," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 1303-1323, October.
    5. Ryan Masters, 2012. "Uncrossing the U.S. Black-White Mortality Crossover: The Role of Cohort Forces in Life Course Mortality Risk," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(3), pages 773-796, August.
    6. Alyson Raalte & Hal Caswell, 2013. "Perturbation Analysis of Indices of Lifespan Variability," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(5), pages 1615-1640, October.
    7. Ryan K. Masters, 2018. "Economic Conditions in Early Life and Circulatory Disease Mortality," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 44(3), pages 519-553, September.
    8. Steven A. Haas & Katsuya Oi & Zhangjun Zhou, 2017. "The Life Course, Cohort Dynamics, and International Differences in Aging Trajectories," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(6), pages 2043-2071, December.
    9. Dmitri A. Jdanov & Vladimir M. Shkolnikov & Alyson A. van Raalte & Evgeny M. Andreev, 2017. "Decomposing Current Mortality Differences Into Initial Differences and Differences in Trends: The Contour Decomposition Method," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(4), pages 1579-1602, August.
    10. Abeliansky, Ana Lucia & Strulik, Holger, 2019. "Long-run improvements in human health: Steady but unequal," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    11. Liming Cai & James Lubitz, 2007. "Was there compression of disability for older Americans from 1992 to 2003?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(3), pages 479-495, August.
    12. Scott Lynch & J. Brown, 2001. "Reconsidering mortality compression and deceleration: an alternative model of mortality rates," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(1), pages 79-95, February.
    13. Hui Zheng & Y. Claire Yang & Kenneth C. Land, 2016. "Age-Specific Variation in Adult Mortality Rates in Developed Countries," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 35(1), pages 49-71, February.
    14. Patrice Nicholas & Mary Smith, 2006. "Demographic challenges and health in Germany," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 25(5), pages 479-487, December.
    15. Margaret M. Weden, 2007. "Twentieth Century U.S. Racial Inequalities in Mortality Changes in the Average Age of Death and the Variability in the Age of Death for White and non-White Men and Women, 1900-2002," Working Papers WR-497, RAND Corporation.
    16. Dustin Brown & Mark Hayward & Jennifer Montez & Robert Hummer & Chi-Tsun Chiu & Mira Hidajat, 2012. "The Significance of Education for Mortality Compression in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(3), pages 819-840, August.
    17. Vladimir M. Shkolnikov & Evgeny M. Andreev & Alexander Z. Begun, 2001. "Gini coefficient as a life table function: computation from discrete data, decomposition of differences and empirical examples," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2001-017, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    18. Glenn Firebaugh & Francesco Acciai & Aggie Noah & Christopher Prather & Claudia Nau, 2014. "Why Lifespans Are More Variable Among Blacks Than Among Whites in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(6), pages 2025-2045, December.
    19. Ediev, Dalkhat M. & Sanderson, Warren C. & Scherbov, Sergei, 2019. "The inverse relationship between life expectancy-induced changes in the old-age dependency ratio and the prospective old-age dependency ratio," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 1-10.
    20. Tomasz Wrycza & Annette Baudisch, 2012. "How life expectancy varies with perturbations in age-specific mortality," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 27(13), pages 365-376.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    mortality; Germany; life expectancy; oldest old; German reunification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:3:y:2000:i:1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Editorial Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.