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№2 (36) 2019

Demography and social economy, 2019, 2(36):52-64
doi: https://doi.org/10.15407/dse2019.02.052
UDC 314.14:311.15 (477)
JEL СLASSIFICATION: J11

N.M. Levchuk
Dr. (Economics), Chief Researcher, Ptoukha Institute for Demography
and Social Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
01032, Ukraine, Kyiv, Taras Shevchenko Blvd., 60
E-mail: levchuk.nata@gmail.com
ORCID 0000-0003-4944-684X

L.V. Luschik
Leading Economist
Dr. (Economics), Chief Researcher, Ptoukha Institute for Demography
and Social Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
01032, Ukraine, Kyiv, Taras Shevchenko Blvd., 60
E-mail: lvluschik@ukr.net
ORCID 0000-0001-5425-3482

INTER-INDIVIDUAL INEQUALITY IN LENGTH OF LIFE IN UKRAINE
Section: DEMOGRAPHIC PROCESSES
Language: Ukrainian
Abstract: The progress in life expectancy and reduction of mortality in developed countries are driven by profound changes in age distribution of deaths and so called historical compression of mortality. Mortality compression causes a rectangularization of the lifetime survival function when more and more cohorts survive until advanced ages. It is important to examine how equally the gain in life span is distributed across individuals in population and to define the degree of inter-individual inequality in life expectancy. Little is known about these processes in Ukraine. In this paper inter-individual inequality in life expectancy in Ukraine is examined through the following measures: Gini coefficient, average inter-individual difference in age at death (absolute measure corresponding to Gini), and inter-quartile range. They are defined on the length-of-life distribution. We found that: a) there has been a decline in inter-individual inequality in length of life in Ukraine since the 2000s; b) the degree of inequality in length of life is higher when life expectancy tends to decrease. Modeling and testing the Lorenz curves for life tables with different mortality patterns revealed that variations in Gini coefficient are most sensitive to changes in level and age distribution of mortality at working ages and tends to a minimum when more deaths is concentrated around the mean age at death. In 2017, the lowest values of Gini coefficient were detected in Ternopil, IvanoFrankivsk and Chernivtsi oblasts while its highest values were observed in Kirovograd, Zhytomyr and Chernigiv oblasts. Analysis of life tables and calculation of interquartile range show that age distribution of deaths in men is more unequal than that in women. 50% of males die between the ages of 58 and 79 years that is during 21 years while 50% of females die between 71 to 87 years that is during 15 years. Not only do the women die at more advanced ages and live longer than men but also they have much higher death concentration between the first and the third quartiles. This indicates that historical compression of mortality and rectangularizations effects are more pronounced for women than for men.
Key words: mortality, inter-individual-inequality, Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient, inter-quartile range
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