The Decline of Mortality at Older Ages: Spatial and Temporal Diversity

France Meslé, Institut National d'etudes Demographiques (INED)
Jacques Vallin, Institut National d'etudes Demographiques (INED)

In industrialized countries, recent trends in mortality at older ages have varied during the past decades and from country to country. Rhythm of decline has also changed from age to age after age 60. Using a set of available life tables completed by the Kannisto data basis, we'll try to identify the main variations in the mortality pattern at older ages in developed countries. We will then look at causes of death to see if these variations can be related to different pathological patterns. In some cases, we will see that different pathological patterns are actually associated with contrasted trends in age specific mortality like when comparing France to Denmark but, in other cases, not fewer pathological differences are found when trends in age specific mortality are very comparable. Nevertheless we will try to discuss a fundamental logic which could associate pathological patterns and age structure mortality at old ages.