Centenarians in Sardinia: the underlying causes of the low sex ratio

Graziella Caselli, Università di Roma "La Sapienza"
Domenica Rasulo, Università di Roma "La Sapienza"

In this study we are going to explain why in Sardinia there is low centenarian sex ratio (SR). To address this issue, we have preliminary followed a cohort approach to know when the difference in SR comes out. We found that the difference is marked from age 79. Afterwards, we have applied decomposition and standardisation methods. The first method has decomposed the difference in SR in two components: the difference in SR at age 79 (providing the role of migration and mortality until that point) and the difference in mortality law from age 79. The second method has shown which would have been the centenarian Sardinian SR when standardising for the male and female Italian mortality. We found that the mortality after age 79 is more relevant than the mortality and migration processes before this age. Additionally the difference in SR depends especially on the lower mortality of Sardinian men.