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AbstractThis paper studies the determinants of Russian adult mortality controlling for both individual and household heterogeneity. We employ survival analysis and utilize 12 rounds of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey spanning a 14‐year period. Although confirming the crucial role of excessive alcohol consumption in shaping adult mortality risks in Russia, the results are original in several other respects. We find empirical support for the importance of relative status measured in non‐income terms in shaping mortality hazards. We find evidence of the influence of labour market behaviour, and sectoral and occupational mobility in particular, on longevity. The detrimental role of smoking to health is found to be comparable with the role of excess alcohol consumption, which is novel in the Russian context where the influence of smoking is typically downplayed in comparison with alcoholism. Finally, we find no micro evidence in support of the political economy view based on a positive correlation between low alcohol prices and high mortality rates found in regional‐level data.

This volume presents a state of the art coverage of the measurement and evolution of mortality over time. It describes in great detail the changes in the cause patterns of mortality, the changes in mortality patterns at different ages, and specific analyses of mortality in particular countries. Derived from a meeting of the European Working Group on Health, Morbidity and Mortality held at the Vienna Institute of Demography, September 2011, it presents a cross-section of the work and concerns of mortality researchers across Europe, ranging from London and Madrid in the west to Moscow in the east, with a few additions from further afield. Although most of the papers focus on a particular population, the range of the papers is broad; taken together they present an inter-disciplinary cross-section of this multi-faceted field. Coverage includes estimating life expectancy in small areas, with an application to recent changes in US counties; socioeconomic determinants of mortality in Europe using the latest available data and short-term forecasts; predicting mortality from profiles of biological risk and performance measures of functioning; infant mortality measurement and rate of progress on international commitment using evidence from Argentina; avoidable factors contributing to maternal deaths in Turkey; changes in mortality at older ages: the case of Spain (1975- 2006); variable scales of avoidable mortality within the Russian population; long-term mortality decline in East Asia, and much more. Perspectives in Mortality Research will serve as a valuable resource for professionals and students in sociology, demography, public health and personal finance

In the demographic literature on developing countries, studies of mortality perceptions are conspicuous by their absence. Perhaps it has been assumed that when mortality declines, the decline will be quickly recognized by individuals and will then influence their demographic decisions. The possibility of substantial lags and biases in risk perception, which cause individual perceptions to diverge from the changing empirical realities, has not been much considered. Yet studies in cognitive and social psychology indicate that individual mortality perceptions are likely to be diffuse and may well be biased upward in relation to the declining empirical risks. If individuals are poorly equipped to recognize mortality decline, so too may be social groups—social learning will not necessarily correct individual misapprehensions. This note discusses the perceptual limitations that may delay recognition of mortality decline and examines the implications for demographic behavior in three areas: modern health care, fertility control, and children's schooling.

SummaryIt is known that mortality of Jews is different from the mortality of the populations that surround them. However, the existence of commonalities in mortality of different Jewish communities across the world has not received scholarly attention. This paper aims to identify common features of the evolution of Jewish mortality among Jews living in Israel and the Diaspora. In the paper the mortality of Jews in Israel is systematically compared with the mortality of the populations of developed countries, and the findings from the earlier studies of mortality of Jews in selected Diaspora communities are re-examined. The outcome is a re-formulation and extension of the notion of the 'Jewish pattern of mortality'. The account of this pattern is based on the consistently low level of behaviourally induced mortality, the migration history of Jewish populations and the enduring influence of early-life conditions on mortality at older ages.

This week we're looking at the impact of war on rates of infant mortality. How big is it? And can it be mitigated?