Non-Survival to Pension Age in Denmark and Sweden: A Sub-National Investigation

Ilya Kashnitsky , Interdisciplinary Centre On Population Dynamics, University Of Southern Denmark
Cosmo Strozza , Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics
Erich Striessnig, University of Vienna

Mortality keeps improving even in the most developed countries. Deaths before senior age become more and more occasional and thus are increasingly considered unnecessary and perhaps even avoidable. Denmark surely belongs to the most developed countries of the world in terms of progress in lowering human mortality levels. Yet there is still much room for large improvements – compared to Sweden, Danish population has almost the same survival profile up to age 50 but then there are striking differences in later ages. Between ages 50 and 65 about 11% of Danish males die while in Sweden this proportion is only about 6%. The larger goal of the project is to analyse the regularities of non-survival to pension age and in the first five years of pension and to understand who are those non-survivors. In this paper we take a broader look at the spatial differences in non-survival to pension age across Danish municipalities and compare them to ones in Sweden. The methodological challenge resolved along the way is the construction of reliable life table estimates for the small population the municipalities. The paper aims to identify the spatial clusters of municipalities based on the mortality characteristics of the population.

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 Presented in Session 29. Current debates around retirement and mortality