Assessing Regional Mortality Disparities across Intra- and International Borders in Europe: An Application of the Earth Mover’s Distance

Laura A Cilek, Bundesinstitut für Bevoelkerungsforschung
Markus Sauerberg, Federal Institute for Population Research
Pavel Grigoriev, Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), Germany
Sebastian Kluesener, Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), Germany

Whereas the majority of studies on mortality trends and differentials tends to focus on countries and sub-national regions, less attention has been given to disparities between adjacent regions divided by intra- or international borders. We demonstrate the potential of such analyses through the application of the Earth Mover’s Distance, a measure of statistical distance that quantifies the difference between two distributions with a single measure and can incorporate multiple dimensions within these distinct distributions. We show the one-dimensional application of the method, using mortality data for 526 European subregions to examine differences in the distribution of deaths by age across 179 international and 1073 domestic borders. We then empirically demonstrate its two-dimensional application, focusing on Austria, Czechia, and Slovakia using both age and cause of death. As expected, our results highlight the existence of large mortality differences along international borders, especially between countries separated by the former Iron Curtain. However, large mortality differences between adjacent regions can also occur within countries or along so-called cultural borders. Our innovative approach to quantitatively study cross-border disparities highlights new perspectives to study and understand spatial, socioeconomic, and other differences in the context of demographic research.

Keywords: Data and Methods, Spatial Demography, Mortality and Longevity, Mathematical demography

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