Modelling and forecasting sex differences in mortality: a sex-ratio approach

Marie-Pier Bergeron-Boucher, Max-Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging
Vladimir Canudas-Romo, Max-Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging

Over the last three decades, male and female life expectancy have been converging in industrialized societies. This convergence is largely due to a greater mortality reduction for males. When forecasting mortality by sex, this catching up of males towards females needs to be acknowledged. We introduce a new method to model and forecast the sex-ratio of the age-specific death rates, based on principal components techniques. Our model allows us to visualize the age-structure and the general level over time of the sex difference in mortality, as well as forecast this difference. Based on a prior forecast for females, we can successfully forecast the male mortality catch up toward female mortality.