MPIDR Technical Report

R programs for decomposing changes in life expectancy variance within and between country groups

MPIDR Technical Report TR-2016-002, 11 pages.
Rostock, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (November 2016)

Abstract

In this technical report, we present an application of the stepwise replacement algorithm for the decomposition of a change in an aggregated index by age with an additional split by mortality and population composition effects, and for the decomposition by age and country group. The method is detailed in Timonin et al. (2016). As the index to be decomposed, we use the variance in life expectancy at birth across countries. However, the scripts can be easily modified for the decomposition of other aggregate demographic measures calculated for a set of countries. In addition to the variance across the whole set of countries, we also calculate and decompose variances between and within groups of countries.

The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock is one of the leading demographic research centers in the world. It's part of the Max Planck Society, the internationally renowned German research society.