Mortality Developments in Greece from the Cohort Perspective

Abstract

Mortality developments in Greece have been analyzed and discussed with the aid of period data. However, any relevant studies from the cohort perspective are absent. Such studies are of great importance because period analysis, and analogously the estimation of the relevant life expectancies, can give a distorted picture of the real temporal trends of longevity when analyzing mortality changes. Tempo and cohort effects, as well as other agents like selection, are responsible for this phenomenon. Taking these into consideration, period life table data were used separately for the male and female population in order to obtain one-year probabilities of death for any birth cohort formed in Greece after the 1930s. Afterwards, partial life expectancies and the expected years lost between birth and several other ages were calculated for each of them. The results of the analysis are indicative of the mortality transition observed in Greece in the last 57 years and give a clear picture of the existing gender differences during this transition. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.