Regularities and deviations in mortality trends of the developed world

Elisabetta Barbi, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

By the second half of the 20th century, mortality patterns in industrialized countries showed a continuous tendency of reduction at all ages, even at the oldest ones. However, the pace of mortality decline considerably varies depending on the country. Furthermore, in a few cases, stagnation and even an unexpected reversed pattern have been observed in more recent years. In this paper an extensive comparative analysis of mortality trends in several developed countries is performed. The aim of the paper is to locate deviations from expected mortality patterns, and to determine the reasons for these deviations. As a first step of the analysis, a new two-dimensional relational model is applied to mortality surfaces of the selected developed countries, between 1960 and 1999, for the age range 50-99. In the second step, mortality by cause of the countries with particular structural features is analyzed through the surfaces of leading causes of death.