The The life table paradox: has Brazil already overcome it?

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20947/S0102-3098a0179

Keywords:

Life tables, Life expectancy, Infant mortality, Health inequalities, Regional Inequalities, Decomposition

Abstract

Ideally, life expectancy should be a decreasing function of age. When this fact is not observed, this situation is known as the life table paradox. This paper investigated the timing (and health metrics at the time) in which Brazil and its Federation Units (FU) overcame (or are expected to overcome) this paradox. The data were gathered from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and contained 3,416 sex-specific abridged life tables, from 2000 to 2060. At national level, females and males overcame the paradox in 2016 and 2018, respectively. However, when the FU were examined separately, much heterogeneity was observed. Through the decomposition analysis of the change over time in the difference between life expectancy at birth and at age one, we found that Brazil and most of its FU are expected to have both changes declining over time and the total change is expected to be decreasing and greater than zero. Nevertheless, for some Northeastern states the total change is expected to pass from a positive to a negative value; and for two Northern states the total change is expected to be neither decreasing nor increasing. In a public planning perspective, we understand that achieving balancing in the life tables is a goal to be pursued, especially because having an imbalanced table means that life expectancy at birth is still strongly influenced by high levels of infant mortality. Therefore, this knowledge could help planners to properly define strategies to accelerate the balancing process and revert unequal scenarios.

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Author Biography

Filipe Costa de Souza, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Centro de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas, Departamento de Ciências Contábeis e Atuariais

Filipe Costa de Souza holds a PhD in Economics from Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE) and he is currently a professor at the Departamento de Ciências Contábeis e Atuariais, also at UFPE.

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Published

2021-12-13

How to Cite

Souza, F. C. de. (2021). The The life table paradox: has Brazil already overcome it?. Brazilian Journal of Population Studies, 38, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.20947/S0102-3098a0179

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Original Articles