MPIDR Working Paper
The ages of extremal impact on life disparity caused by averting deaths
Wagner, P.
MPIDR Working Paper WP-2010-016, 16 pages.
Rostock, Max-Planck-Institut für demografische Forschung (Februar 2010)
Abstract
This paper is concerned with sensitivity analysis of life disparity with respect to changes in mortality rates. Recently Zhang and Vaupel introduced a ”threshold age”, such that averting deaths before that age reduces disparity, while averting deaths after that age increases disparity. We provide a refinement to this result by characterizing the ages at which averting deaths has an extremal impact on life disparity. A procedure is given for approaching the threshold age numerically. The results are illustrated using data for the female populations of Denmark, the US, Japan and France in 2005.
[Keywords: life disparity, sensitivity analysis, mortality changes, threshold age]