Suchergebnisse

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990 and EU enlargement in 2004 are two major political events in the recent history of the Central and Eastern European region. By systematically comparing the changes and differences in life expectancy at birth between the seven new member countries from Central and Eastern Europe and more advanced countries of the EU-15, this article attempts to identify the vanguards and laggards in the health convergence process before and after the 2004 EU enlargement. The results of decomposition analysis highlight the changing patterns of age- and cause-specific contributions to the differences in life expectancy. Finally, we focus on the variations in the progress in reducing the burden of cardiovascular diseases and external causes of death, which were known to be responsible for the long-term mortality crisis during the period of communist rule. Our findings suggest that the collapse of the communist regimes led to immediate positive changes in the Central European countries. At the same time, health disadvantages persisted and even worsened in the Baltic countries. Later on, joining the EU in 2004 was not accompanied by immediate systematic convergence of life expectancy. However, very rapid progress in the initially worst performing Baltic countries after 2007 and especially during the 2010s, may suggest a delayed positive impact of EU enlargement leading to decreasing longevity disadvantage. The convergence process after 2004 was generally slower in the initially better-performing four Central European countries. Despite these country-specific variations, Czechia, Poland, and, especially, Estonia remain clear health vanguards in the region. Further progress requires much more systematic efforts to combat cardiovascular diseases and the persisting burden of excess male mortality at adult working ages.

L'évolution de l'espérance de vie dans les pays baltes est instructive car elle nous renseigne sur les liens qu'il peut y avoir entre les avatars géopolitiques qu'a connus cette région à la lisière de l'Empire russe puis de l'URSS et le déroulement de la transition sanitaire. Largement en avance sur la Russie lors de leur première indépendance, l'Estonie, la Lettonie et la Lituanie ont payé très cher leur intégration forcée à l'URSS. C'est seulement à partir de 1995 que les nouvelles politiques mises en œuvre dans le cadre de leur seconde indépendance puis de leur entrée dans l'Union européenne ont permis à ces pays de prendre le chemin d'une remontée durable de l'espérance de vie et d'une convergence vers les standards ouest-européens.

Fertility transformations observed since the early 1990s and their determinants have been rather thoroughly investigated in Lithuania. There are fairly numerous national and international studies devoted to this topic, mainly based on survey data. However, none of these studies looks into the effect of ethnicity on fertility. It is, to a large extent, caused by limitations of sample survey data. This study demonstrates potentials of census-linked fertility data to estimate robust and nationally representative parity-specific period fertility measures by ethnicity. The findings of this first systematic study of ethnicity-specific fertility differentials in Lithuania indicate that ethnicity does matter for fertility even in such ethnically homogenous country as Lithuania. Fertility among Lithuanians is higher than in the other ethnic groups, especially among Russians. Lower fertility in the Russian ethnic group is mainly explained by differences in the risk of having the second child. Importantly, this disadvantage remains significant even after controlling for selected compositional characteristics including urban-rural place of residence and education. The approach used in this study may be applied for Latvia and Estonia, where national minorities constitute substantial shares of the entire populations and significantly contribute to overall fertility levels.

Estimates based on official vital statistics underestimate mortality for Italy during the World Wars. This paper uses a modeling strategy to estimate mortality for Italy based on data from both civilian and military authorities. The model uses the same principles as the one used to reconstruct war losses for England/Wales (Jdanov et al. 2005) and can be adapted to other countries even when we lack detailed knowledge of historical events during wartime. The results produce much lower estimates of life expectancy at birth for males during wartime than the previously published estimates that exclude military deaths. For example, in 1917, the former was nearly 15 years lower than the latter (31.0 versus 45.8 years).

Mortality analysis by causes of death is one of the key areas of demographic research. However, the relevance and usefulness of such analysis strongly depend on the validity, reliability, and usability of the collected data. This thesis extends the traditional approach to studying the issue of cause-of-death data quality by examining the consistency of the data collected by a given country. Two dimensions are addressed: spatial consistency, or the consistency of the data across the country's subnational entities; and temporal consistency, or the consistency of cause-of-death data over time.

AbstractLithuania represents one of the rare cases in which a state with relatively high standards for maintaining population statistics is experiencing mass emigration. In light of the policy initiatives undertaken by the Lithuanian government to address the issue of emigration, this study aims to improve our understanding of how, in this mass emigration context, emigration events are connected to specific socio‐economic characteristics of individuals and variation in local socio‐economic conditions. We analyse census and vital registration data covering the whole working‐age population of Lithuania during the period 2011‐2012. Our findings indicate that when assessing the likelihood of emigration events, individual‐level characteristics such as employment status, educational attainment, and prior migration experience are highly relevant. However, the importance of these characteristics differs by gender. We also detect considerable spatial variation in emigration rates across Lithuanian municipalities. Our outcomes provide new insights for the development of cohesive migration policies in Lithuania.

Health progress in the 1960s and 1970s placed Cuba at the vanguard of longevity in Latin America and the Caribbean. This success has often been attributed to equity of access to the health care system and its cost-effectiveness in the country. Cuba also has a small gender gap in life expectancy. In this study, we examined how this pattern is reflected in the gender differences in health among the population aged 60+ in Havana. We compared gender differences in health in samples drawn from Havana, Mexico City, and the US Hispanic population: three geographic settings with very different political, health care, and social systems. The data come from the Survey on Health, Well-Being, and Aging in Latin America and the Caribbean and the 2000 Health and Retirement Study. Age-adjusted prevalence and logistic regressions were estimated for poor self-rated health, limitations on activities of daily living, depression, and mobility limitations. While an absolute female disadvantage in health was apparent in all three populations, the relative gender differences were inconsistent across all four health domains. Gender differences were most pronounced in Havana, even after adjusting for age, socio-economic status, family characteristics, and smoking behaviour. Despite having higher overall life expectancy and more equitable and universal access to primary care and preventive medicine, women in Havana appear to have a larger burden of ill health than women in less equitable societies. The study provides indirect evidence that Cuba faces challenges in combating the health threats posed by chronic diseases and other diseases and conditions common among the population aged 60+ ; Socialinių tyrimų centras ; Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas