title: Rise, stagnation, and rise of Danish women's life expectancy.
abstract: Health conditions change from year to year, with a general tendency in many countries for improvement. These conditions also change from one birth cohort to another: some generations suffer more adverse events in childhood, smoke more heavily, eat poorer diets, etc., than generations born earlier or later. Because it is difficult to disentangle period effects from cohort effects, demographers, epidemiologists, actuaries, and other population scientists often disagree about cohort effects' relative importance. In particular, some advocate forecasts of life expectancy based on period trends; others favor forecasts that hinge on cohort differences. We use a combination of age decomposition and exchange of survival probabilities between countries to study the remarkable recent history of female life expectancy in Denmark, a saga of rising, stagnating, and now again rising lifespans. The gap between female life expectancy in Denmark vs. Sweden grew to 3.5 y in the period 1975-2000. When we assumed that Danish women born 1915-1945 had the same survival probabilities as Swedish women, the gap remained small and roughly constant. Hence, the lower Danish life expectancy is caused by these cohorts and is not attributable to period effects.
authors.affiliation: Danish Aging Research Center, Unit of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark; Max Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark;
authors.forename: Rune
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lindahl-Jacobsen
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, 18057, Rostock, Germany; Department of Sociology & Demography, University of Rostock, 18057, Rostock, Germany;
authors.forename: Roland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rau
authors.affiliation: Danish Aging Research Center, Unit of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark;
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jeune
authors.affiliation: Danish Aging Research Center, Unit of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark; Max Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark;
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Canudas-Romo
authors.affiliation: Danish Aging Research Center, Unit of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark; Max Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark;
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lenart
authors.affiliation: Danish Aging Research Center, Unit of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark; Max Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark; Department of Clinical Genetics, Odense University Hospital, 5000 Odense, Denmark; Department of Clinical Biochemistry and Pharmacology, Odense University Hospital, 5000 Odense, Denmark;
authors.forename: Kaare
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Christensen
authors.affiliation: Danish Aging Research Center, Unit of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark; Max Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging, University of Southern Denmark, DK-5000 Odense, Denmark; Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, 18057, Rostock, Germany; Duke University Population Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0989 jvaupel@health.sdu.dk.
authors.forename: James W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Vaupel
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002423:Cause of Death; D003718:Denmark; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy / Q000639:trends*; D008136:Longevity; D011157:Population Dynamics / Q000639:trends*; D013548:Sweden
keywords: cohort effects; decomposition; interwar Danish women; life expectancy; period effects