The Changing Contributions of Lifespan Mode and Variation to the Marital-Status Gap in Australian Life Expectancy over Six Decades

Marie-Pier Bergeron-Boucher, Interdisciplinary Center on Population Dynamics (CPop), University of Southern Denmark
Serena Vigezzi, Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics, University of Southern Denmark
Heather Booth, Australian National University

It is established that married people live longer than unmarried people. Previous studies show that mortality differences by marital status have increased, but these studies are limited to relatively recent and short time frames. Differences in mortality by marital status are often based on life expectancy, and decomposed only by age. This paper aims to increase knowledge and understanding of long-term marital-status differences in mortality using six decades of data and more recent decomposition methods. The data are sourced from the Australian Demographic Databank 1921-1981. For each sex, the marital-status gap in life expectancy at age 30 is decomposed (1) by age using the Arriaga method, and (2) into the contributions of the lifespan mode and variation using the model of Bergeron-Boucher et al. (2015). For females, the small initial gap in e(30) is mainly attributable to lifespan mode, but its subsequent widening to almost three years is due to lifespan variation. For males, the gap widens from four to six years driven mainly by the difference in the mode with a relatively stable smaller contribution of lifespan variation. These contributions are further examined by age. The results are juxtaposed with previous decompositions by time, age and cause of death.

Keywords: Decomposition analysis

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