Explicating the Low Life Expectancy Ranking of the United States by Studying the Mortality History of Cohorts

Vladimir Canudas-Romo, Johns Hopkins University

The American period life expectancy has one of the lowest rankings among developed nations. However, these comparisons correspond to current mortality levels. Complete series of mortality that allow construction of actual life expectancies experienced by cohorts is only found in a subset of developed countries. Here, we compare countries using the truncated cross-sectional average length of life (TCAL). This measure includes historical information of all the cohorts present at a given moment and is not limited to countries with complete cohort mortality information. By calculating TCAL for different countries it is possible to distinguish the specific cohorts that contributed most notoriously to the disparity in mortality between countries. The American cohorts born in the 1950s have experienced greater cohort survival than the combined information of other high-longevity countries, and particularly of the long living Japanese counterparts. Opposing this, are those aged 70 to 85 with substantial cohort survival disadvantage.