A stochastic approach to the estimation of the prevalence of IUD: Example of Taiwan,Republic of China

Assuming three patterns of changes in number of new IUD insertions, three stochastic models have been developed for the estimation of the “prevalence” of IUD in situ at a given point of time. The advantages of these models, compared with the conventional ways of estimating IUD prevalence, rest with their ease of use and simplicity of method for calculating variances of the estimates. The models are also useful for family planning administrators to set program targets. A correction factor to estimate the number of IUDs which, although “currently in situ,” are worn by women who have “passed over” the upper age limit of their reproductive spans has also been developed. This is particularly useful in estimating the “effective retention” of IUD.     

中国老年人口健康预期寿命差异的分解研究

健康预期寿命是反映人群健康长寿的重要指标,健康预期寿命差异反映了一个国家或地区的健康不平等状况。利用多状态生命表分析了中国老年人口健康预期寿命在过去十余年间的趋势与变动,并通过夏普利值分解法测算了人口社会学等11类因素对老年人口健康预期寿命差异的具体贡献值。得到以下四项重要研究结论:第一,从2005年到2018年,中国老年人口健康预期寿命差异的程度略有增加,女性、农村群体相比对应群体差距始终较高;泰尔指数分解发现,组内不平等(而非组间不平等)是造成上述差异的主要原因;老年人口健康预期寿命的性别差异呈现出高龄老人缩小而低龄老人扩大的趋势。第二,婚姻状况是健康预期寿命变动最重要的影响因素,但影响程度呈现逐年下降趋势,反之,受教育程度的影响在逐年上升;进一步将11类影响因素归类后发现:"个体特征"是最重要的影响因素,"经济因素"和"行为因素"的重要性次之,"环境因素"的影响最小。第三,上述影响因素对中国老年人口健康预期寿命的影响总体呈上升趋势,分城乡、分性别后依然呈现出相同的特征。最后,各因素在不同城乡、性别、婚姻状态的群体中的影响存在异质性。     

A state-based regression model for estimating substate life expectancy

Life expectancy is an important indicator of the level of mortality in a population. However, the conventional way of calculating life expectancy--constructing a life table--has rigorous data requirements. As a consequence, life expectancy data are not usually available for substate areas. In this article, a regression model for estimating life expectancy is constructed, using state-level data, and is tested against two sets of 1980 life expectancy data: (1) a nationwide sample of metropolitan areas and (2) selected cities, their suburbs, and rural counties in Ohio. An additional test shows the sensitivity of the model's accuracy to errors in one of its input data elements. The results suggest that the model should be given serious consideration for generating life expectancy estimates for substate areas.     

Use of the intra-uterine contraceptive device in rural West Pakistan

This paper presents selected aspects of experience with the intra-uterine contraceptive device (IUD) in rural West Pakistan. There were 1,162 IUD cases analyzed with respect to retention or non-retention. Retention rates were estimated, using life table methods, to be between 55 and 75 percent at one year; the smaller figure was obtained when theIUD was considered to be in situ only until the last examination, when it was observed to be in place. The latter or larger figure was obtained when the IUD was considered to be in situ unless known to be out.The extent of follow-up greatly affects estimates of the length of time the IUD remains in situ. Retention also varies with the type of I UD employed; exclusive use of Loop 3, which has the best retention record of those used,may be expected to yield higher retention rates by as much as 5 to 10 percent for one year. A number of other factors were examined that might explain non-retention. The objective variables that were examined in this experience, such as age, previous contraception, and husband's illiteracy, were on the whole rather poor predictors of IUD retention. Expulsion and other medical complications appear to account for most discontinuance of use of the IUD.     

The Contribution of Health Care and Other Interventions to Black–White Disparities in Life Expectancy, 1980–2007

Black–white mortality disparities remain sizable in the United States. In this study, we use the concept of avoidable/amenable mortality to estimate cause-of-death contributions to the difference in life expectancy between whites and blacks by gender in the United States in 1980, 1993, and 2007. We begin with a review of the concept of “avoidable mortality” and results of prior studies using this cause-of-death classification. We then present the results of our empirical analyses. We classified causes of death as amenable to medical care, sensitive to public health policies and health behaviors, ischemic heart disease, suicide, HIV/AIDS, and all other causes combined. We used vital statistics data on deaths and Census Bureau population estimates and standard demographic decomposition techniques. In 2007, causes of death amenable to medical care continued to account for close to 2 years of the racial difference in life expectancy among men (2.08) and women (1.85). Causes amenable to public health interventions made a larger contribution to the racial difference in life expectancy among men (1.17 years) than women (0.08 years). The contribution of HIV/AIDS substantially widened the racial difference among both men (1.08 years) and women (0.42 years) in 1993, but its contribution declined over time. Despite progress observed over the time period studied, a substantial portion of black–white disparities in mortality could be reduced given more equitable access to medical care and health interventions.     

Atechnique for estimating life expectancy with crude vital rates

This paper describes a method of estimating life expectancy at birth on the basis of crude vital rates. The method is derived from stable population theory and it furnishes good estimates insofar as the current crude vital rates of a population are close to its intrinsic rates. This condition is generally met in closed populations which have not experienced sharp movements in fertility. The method is useful for estimating life expectancy in developing nations with good sample registration systems but for which information on age is of poor quality. It is also useful for estimating the movement of life expectancy in certain European nations in the period prior to regular census taking. There are a number of nations and regions in Europe for which long series of birth and death rates are available but for which census age counts are widely spaced.     

Estimating Indigenous life expectancy: pitfalls with consequences

The methods used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to estimate life expectancies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in 2009 have been controversial and require critical and sensitive analysis. The introduction by ABS of the direct method for estimating Indigenous life expectancies, based on estimated deaths and populations, has been generally welcomed. But the way this method has been applied and, in particular, death estimates used by the ABS, warrant scrutiny. These estimates were based on a first ever linkage between Indigenous deaths and census records following the 2006 census. Census-based identification was used in place of identification in the death registrations, rather than as a supplementary data source. The various national, state and regional life expectancy estimates published may have been biased upwards by this process. Because the impact of the methodology varies across Australia, regional differentials reported appear substantial but are not soundly based. The questionable ABS results are highlighted and discussed. Analysis based on more comprehensive linkage of death records in New South Wales over 5?years suggests that the ABS methods have understated Indigenous deaths and so overstated life expectancy. The effect of an alternative ABS approach is also discussed. ABS estimates published in 2009 are not necessarily definitive and may well overestimate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life expectancy and underestimate the life expectancy gap. Estimates should be based on accurate estimates of deaths and population. Consultation and a thorough review are essential before the next round of estimates following the findings of the 2011 population census. Closing the Gap commitments focus on eliminating the life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians. Life expectancy estimates need to be based on methods and data that are well understood and broadly supported. The alternative is unproductive debate about statistics rather than the range of policies and resourcing issues needed to improve Indigenous health.     

Estimation of life expectancy — cohort life table

Life tables are traditionally built with linear assumptions for the survival curve. Here, considering that survivors can remain at the end of the observation period, the author shows that non linear modeling is more appropriate. With data on cervix uteri cancer, e0 ≈ 12.5 years with standard error ≈ 2.8 years with infinite time horizon, but e0 ≈ 6.0 years with standard error ≈ 0.1 year in interval with finite time horizon [0, 12 years]. The average hazard function is introduced to estimate the life expectancy, and the actuarial estimate of the hazard function is showed to under‐estimate the true hazard values under the exponential distribution. Finally, a sensitivity analysis of the probabilities of death on the estimation of life expectancy completes the study.     

A Realist View of Aging,Mortality, and Future Longevity

Differences in methodology and philosophy have led scientists analyzing the same mortality data to arrive at very different conclusions about the behavior of mortality trajectories, the nature of aging, and the future of human longevity. This note describes the authors’views on these issues, which taken together can be termed a “realist” position. In this view, life expectancy is unlikely to exceed an average of 85 years absent significant advances in the control of aging. We identify a number of myths that have been attached to our work: 1) Reaching an average life expectancy of 85 years is a pessimistic outlook for human longevity, 2) Species possess an intrinsic mortality schedule that cannot be modified by human intervention, 3) Realist scenarios of the future course of human longevity are based on notions of biological determinism, 4) Realists assert that there is an age beyond which there can be no survivors, 5) Hypothesized biological barriers to longer life spans have been scientifically studied and refuted, and 6) Realists claim that life expectancy at birth cannot exceed 85 years. In dispelling these myths, we hope to provide a more accurate representation of our school of biodemographic thought.     

The contribution of a history of heavy smoking to Scotland's mortality disadvantage

Scotland has a lower life expectancy than any country in Western Europe or North America, and this disadvantage is concentrated above age 50. According to the Human Mortality Database, life expectancy at age 50 has been lower in Scotland than in any other developed country since 1980. Relative to 15 developed countries that we have chosen for comparison, Scotland's life expectancy in 2009 at age 50 was lower by an average of 2.5?years for women and 1.6?years for men. We estimate that Scottish women lost 3.6?years of life expectancy at age 50 as a result of smoking, compared to 1.4?years for the comparison countries. The equivalent figures among men are 3.1 and 2.1?years. These differences are large enough for the history of heavy smoking in Scotland to account both for most of the shortfall in life expectancy for both sexes and for the country's unusually narrow sex differences in life expectancy.     

分年龄组死亡率变动对人均期望寿命影响的实验研究 ——以甘肃省为例

人均期望寿命是分析、评价人口健康状况,衡量社会经济发展及医疗卫生服务水平的重要指标。从2014年开始人均期望寿命的提高被纳入卫生计生系统考核内容,受到各级政府的重视。为了有效地甄别和评价政策实施对人均期望寿命提高的贡献程度,需要精确地估计和判断各年龄组死亡率变动对人均期望寿命提高的影响。在实践中,针对某一年龄组或某一特定人群死亡率的变动以及相关政策实施对人均期望寿命的影响鲜有较为精确的定量解答或快速有效的估算办法。本研究通过数据实验方法和计算机辅助计算建立一套可以较为精确地估算某一区域内某一年龄组死亡率变动对人均期望寿命影响的计算方法和结果集,利用这种方法可以开展不同类型、不同区域内人口死亡率变动对人均期望寿命影响的快速估算。利用估算结果可以对区域内政策实施效果进行较为科学的评估或评价。文章以中国2010年人口普查数据中甘肃省各年龄组分性别死亡率数据为基础对上述研究进行实证分析和验证。     

Trends in senescent life expectancy

The distinction between senescent and non-senescent mortality proves to be very valuable for describing and analysing age patterns of death rates. Unfortunately, standard methods for estimating these mortality components are lacking. The first part of this paper discusses alternative methods for estimating background and senescent mortality among adults and proposes a simple approach based on death rates by causes of death. The second part examines trends in senescent life expectancy (i.e., the life expectancy implied by senescent mortality) and compares them with trends in conventional longevity indicators between 1960 and 2000 in a group of 17 developed countries with low mortality. Senescent life expectancy for females rises at an average rate of 1.54 years per decade between 1960 and 2000 in these countries. The shape of the distribution of senescent deaths by age remains relatively invariant while the entire distribution shifts over time to higher ages as longevity rises.     

Modelling change in perceived quality of life (PQOL)

Almost all previous research on PQOL has examined static relationships. This paper, based on two waves of an Australian panel study (N=677), investigates change. We estimate a model in which changes in PQOL are seen as depending directly on changes in satisfaction with particular domains of life (marriage, job, etc.), which in turn are affected by life events occurring within these domains. This model accords with a “bottom-up” rather than a “top-down” theory of PQOL or well-being (Diener, 1984). Chief interest lies in the strong relationships between domain specific events and changes in domain satisfactions. In previous research life events have been directly linked to PQOL, or to physical or mental illness. The different result here arises from estimating a more appropriate model with an additional link (changes in domain satisfactions) in the chain. From a methodological standpoint, the paper suggests that life events inventories can be valuable research instruments and that recent validity criticisms (e.g. Schroeder and Costa, 1984) have been overstated. The second part of the paper deals with relationships between personality traits, social support and life events. We test hypotheses about links between (1) personality and subsequent life events (2) the “buffering” effects of personality and social support on the impact of adverse events (3) the effects of events on personality. Personality traits apparently do affect the subsequent incidence of life events. Extraversion is associated with favourable subsequent events, and neuroticism with adverse events. Internal locus of control apparently wards off adversity. An alternative hypothesis that these relationships are due to biassed reporting (i.e. personality traits are associated with degrees of bias) appears to be false. Contrary to findings from cross-sectional data, our panel results indicate that neither personality traits nor social support “buffer” the impact of adverse events on PQOL. Finally, life events appears to have small but statistically significant effects in modifying adult personality.     

Economic Report of the President: Strengthening Retirement Security

The 2002 Annual Report of the US Council of Economic Advisers (a 448‐page document, formally an Annex to the Economic Report of the President Transmitted to the Congress February 2002, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office) offers an extended discussion (Chapter 2, pp. 65–97) of the topic of “strengthening retirement security.” The increasing salience of the subject is driven in part by demographic factors: increasing life expectancy at older ages and the concomitant change toward an older age distribution amplified by lower fertility. The report notes the “monumental demographic shift” that is taking place in the United States: “Over the next 35 years, the number of workers for every retiree will fall from 3.3 to just 2.1—a 36 percent drop.” The opening sections of Chapter 2 are reproduced below. They address two main subjects. First, the various rationales for a national retirement system as a proper function of government are presented. In the United States such a system is the institution of Social Security. Second, the various sources of income for elderly households are described. Social Security is the largest among these, but not predominant: in 1998 it amounted to some 38 percent of total income. Nonpublic sources—labor earnings, asset income, and private pensions—each make up sizeable shares of income for the elderly. (Income from public assistance is a small fraction of the total, yet it represents a significant element of income for elderly persons with little or no income from other sources.) Demographic trends, the report suggests, make it imperative that in the future Americans “take even greater responsibility for their own retirement security by increasing their personal saving.”     

Testing the relationship between income inequality and life expectancy: a simple correction for the aggregation effect when using aggregated data

In this paper, we show a simple correction for the aggregation effect when testing the relationship between income inequality and life expectancy using aggregated data. While there is evidence for a negative correlation between income inequality and a population’s average life expectancy, it is not clear whether this is due to an aggregation effect based on a non-linear relationship between income and life expectancy or to income inequality being a health hazard in itself. The proposed correction method is general and independent of measures of income inequality, functional form assumptions of the health production function, and assumptions on the income distribution. We apply it to data from the Human Development Report and find that the relationship between income inequality and life expectancy can be explained entirely by the aggregation effect. Hence, there is no evidence that income inequality itself is a health hazard.     

A Turning Point in Gender Bias in Mortality? An Update on the Number of Missing Women

Amartya Sen started a debate about gender bias in mortality by estimating the number of “missing women,” which refers to the number of females of any age who have presumably died as a result of discriminatory treatment. Depending on the assumptions made, the combined estimates for countries exhibiting the presence of such gender bias varied between 60 and 107 million. As new population data have become available for these countries, this article examines whether the number of “missing women” has changed in the past decade. The combined estimate of the number of missing women has risen in absolute terms but has fallen slightly in relation to overall population. Considerable improvement is evident in West Asia, North Africa, and parts of South Asia, while only small improvements have occurred in India and a deterioration took place in China. Analyses of the underlying causes of gender bias in mortality suggest that improvements are largely related to improved female education and employment opportunities and rising overall incomes, while deterioration is mostly attributable to the rising incidence of sex‐selective abortions.     

Playing with Sims as a Space of One's Own

Studies of women's use of popular media have highlighted how these contested genres may be used by women to create a space of their own. Is this also the case when the media text in question is a digital game and the community around it moves online? Investigated via a netnographic approach, this article analyses the articulated experiences of playing The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 in relation to how the players perceive the activity's function in their everyday lives. Seven emic categories are identified and discussed in the inductive analysis, namely “relaxation and dealing with stress,” “playing according to mood,” “managing and taking control,” “experimentation,” “get what one does not have,” “making something one's own,” and “creative outlet.” A central denominator of these seven categories is the notion of a space of one's own in the widest sense of the phrase. In the discussed accounts playing becomes a way not only to escape other obligations for a while but also in various ways to work with the self and its place in everyday life.     

家庭子女养老与个人养老“互补替代”效应：理论与实证

依据生命周期均衡收入分配原理,构建家庭子女养老和个人养老收入分配适度水平及其"互补替代"数理模型,从理论和实证角度研究家庭子女养老和个人养老经济结构优化。研究发现:(1)家庭子女养老和个人养老收入分配存在"替代"关系,而在退休年龄延长的条件下,二者存在"互补"关系;(2)家庭子女养老和个人养老替代的均衡点是家庭有2个子女,随着子女数量的增加,家庭子女养老与个人养老边际替代率递减;(3)伴随老年人寿命的延长,家庭子女养老收入再分配系数下降,个人养老收入分配系数上升且上升幅度大于前者下降幅度;(4)家庭子女养老与个人养老之间的"互补替代"效应呈现为"倒V形"曲线,且其替代的均衡点与总和生育率2.1的更替水平存在契合效应。     

The Characteristics Approach to the Measurement of Population Aging

Conventional measures of population aging, such as proportions over age 65, can present a misleading picture of the aging process by not taking account of changes in people's characteristics beyond their chronological age—for example, changes in remaining life expectancy, health and morbidity, disability rates, and cognitive functioning. The “characteristics approach” set out in this article encompasses multiple features of population aging, yielding new measures that can better inform both demographic analysis and public policy debate. We relate the brief history of this approach, examine its basic mathematical structure, and give empirical examples of the insights it offers, drawing on data from West Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United States.     

Psychological Mechanism of Subjective Well-Being: A Stable Trait or Situational Variability

This study explored the holistic configuration of self-control and self-esteem with Latent Profile Analysis and examined the effect of self profiles on five adolescent quality of life indicators, including deviant behavior, friendship, academic achievement, time management and life satisfaction. The sample included 488 Taiwan junior-high students selected from a panel data. Four-group solution is considered optimal across years. At time 1, the “Quality Selves” group (high SC–SE) had consistent best performance in all the adolescent quality of life indicators while the “Disadvantageous Selves" group (low SC–SE) displayed consistent the worst. Given the same level of SC in “Baseline” group and “Self-Esteem” group, higher SE in the “Self-esteem” was related to higher evaluation of life satisfaction while no difference was found in other 4 quality of life indicators. At time 2, “Self-Esteem” became the “SC-Improved” who had the same best quality of life as the “Quality Selves,” while the “Baseline” was renamed as the “Lower Baseline” who performed similarly as the worst adjusted “Disadvantageous Selves” in indicators, except fewer deviant behaviors. Group membership was generally stable and self-profile transitions were more likely upward than downward. Along the adolescent period, findings suggest the level of SC need to be strengthened in order to sustain a good quality of life. Meanwhile, higher SE seems to be a propelling factor for students to gain better SC at a later time. Educational programs solely aim at cherishing self could move beyond for a double-core direction that also enhances adolescent social adaption with self-discipline training.