Possibilities of Study of the Mortality Convergence and Divergence among Selected Countries: Case-Study of the Post-Communist Countries' Approach to the Rest of the European Countries
Abstract
Studies focused on convergence and divergence tendencies of any indicator provide a unique information about its development in time as well as in space, and could be taken almost as a separate field of research in demography and also in other disciplines. The main goal of this paper is to find and apply a transparent method of measuring and analyzing the convergence tendencies of one selected population to several others.
It is illustrated in the case study, in which we analyze the convergence tendencies of mortality of a selected European country (the Czech Republic as a representative of rapidly developing post-communist countries) to other European countries with lower mortality. Data from 1991-2009 from the Human Mortality Database was used, with only ages 30 and above involved.
The method of analysis is based on the expression of mortality trends in the past, their simple extrapolation and estimation of the time theoretically needed for equalization of the estimated regression functions. In the case study, the age interval was covered by the temporary life expectancy between ages 30 and 65 and life expectancy at the age of 65.
The trend of the first one was fitted by the logistic function, the other one by simple linear regression. Based on the results, the "nearest demographic neighbors" for the Czech Republic according to mortality development is Denmark.
The proposed method could be simply enriched for many other indicators or used for any other population or studied process.