LIFE EXPECTANCY DECOMPOSITION IN SPAIN Evolution and changes of the components of Spanish Mortality Rosa GOMEZ REDONDO and Carl BOE* Department of Sociology III, UNED, Spain. * CECA, Department of Demography, University of Berkeley, USA. I HUMAN MORTALITY DATABASE SYMPOSIUM MPIDR - CEDA Max Plank Institut for Demographic Research, Rostock18-19 June, 2004

Introduction: Evolution of Spanish Mortality. XX Century One of the highest life expectancies in the world although its Mortality Transition started later than in many other countries in Europe Women in particular have had rapid gains –life expectancy of almost 83 years- Men, with a life expectancy of almost 76 years, lag woman by 7 years. The mortality transition starts with an accelerated decline of infant and child mortality During the first half of the Century there were a number of crisis that altered the trends of ordinary mortality (1918 Influenza, and 1936-39 Civil War)

Sources and Methods Study of the ages, the sex and the period where there were the main contributions to the increase of life expectancy. The main source of data has been the Human Mortality Database (HMD) Periods: analysis during the three decades 1971-2001 in Spain. The gain in life expectancy is shown multiplied by 100 to facilitate comparison with the biennial lifetables for 1970-71, 1980-81, 1990-91, 2000-2001. The analysis uses the classic demographic technique of decomposition of the difference in two summary measures. In this case, our summary measure is life expectancy at birth. There are many variants published for how to perform the decomposition (Arriaga, 1982, Andreev, 1982, Andreev et al, 2002, Keyfitz, 1977, Pollard 1982, 1888, Vaupel and Canudas, 2003, Horiuchi et al, 2000, Canudas, 2002, Vaupel, 1986, Tuljapurkar and Boe, 1998). In this opportunity we follow the development of Pollard (1988).

  Infant mortality excluded

CONCLUSION A High Life Expectancy and a High Longevity During the 30 yeas of this period, it is evident that the processes of socio-demographic importance are as follows: Ageing in the vertex of the population pyramid, “Feminization” of elderly, Other important aspects: a) importance of infant mortality b) appearance or disappearance of unexpected or avoidable causes of death in young adults. Spain is currently in the last period of the Health-Epidemiological Transition Slow but continuous decline of mortality Stabilization of the difference by sex in the life expectancy The Spanish case supports the theory that human longevity is able to be modified (Wilmoth, 1998); (Wilmoth et al, 2000).

During the XXth Century the structure of mortality changes as it does the Spanish profile of the Spanish survival curve: At the beginning of the century, high concentration (40%) of deaths at the youngest ages, By mid-century, the formation of a concentration of deaths in the older ages, By 1970, the present pattern has become clear: mortality compressed or rectangularized into the old ages. At the end of the century, the survival profiles of men lag those of women by nearly 30 years.

Recent Changes in the Components of Life Expectancy The contributions by sex and age during each decade toward the total increment of 7,5 years in life expectancy are very different For each decade , high contributions to the life expectancy increment are concentrated in the higher age groups ( important factor of ageing population).

Period 1971 -1981 An important factor to the increment of life expectancy, is still, the contribution of infant mortality. It is not until 70s that the impact of mortality changes at old ages over 65 outweighs the impact of infact mortality on changes in life expectancy.

Period 1981-1991 The 80s show a loss in the young ages, and young adults, in their contribution to the gainsin the average life, this fact being specially important in men. Most of these contributions to changes in life expectancy at birth by the elderly concentrate before 90 years. During the 30 years under study, differential mortality by sex has translated into a 6 / 7 years higher life expectancy for women than for men. Increasing trend for gains in life expectancy to diverge, specially during the 80’s.

Present Trends, 1991-2001 During the period the average life of Spaniards increased more than 2 years. Life expectancy continues of decreasing mortality rates in all age groups, but especially from the elderly. There is a small shift towards the age group 95+ in the last decade. The disappearance of the high mortality of young men during the 80’s. The years of life contributed by men are important and higher than those from women. One exception is women over 70 years of age. There are indicactions that a new trend may be emerging in sex differences in mortality. The “masculinization” of women’s habits and life styles, may results in undesirable effects in future women mortality.