Assessing the Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Mortality: A Comparative Analysis of Period and Cohort Life Expectancy

Maria Laura Miranda, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)
Ugofilippo Basellini, Max Planck Institute for demographic Research
Enrique Acosta, Centre for Demographic Studies
Roland Rau, University of Rostock & Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Emilio Zagheni, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a tremendous increase in mortality over 2020-2023, manifesting disparately among nations. Understanding the pandemic's immediate impact on mortality was essential to make decisions to control the virus's spread. In the long term, it has implications for the success of public policies and pension systems. Period measures, such as the period life expectancy, although convenient to overstate the impact of temporary epidemic mortality, can be misleading if considered a lifespan measure due to a synthetic cohort underlying assumption. In this study, using data from the World Population Prospects (WPP) 2024, we computed estimates of cohort life expectancy at birth for all countries in the world. Despite the reductions of more than 40 months in male life expectancy at birth between 2019 and 2021 in Peru, South Africa, and more than 35 months in the United States, cohort life expectancy estimates show that among the most affected cohorts, the decline was only close to four months for males born around the 50's in Peru. By incorporating the past mortality experience of different cohorts exposed to the pandemic, our study allows a better understanding of the lifespan impact of COVID-19 and its effects on population structure and dynamics.

Keywords: Mortality and Longevity, Population, Shocks and Pandemics, Comparative methods

See paper.