Demography and social economy, 2018, 3(34):56-70
doi: https://doi.org/10.15407/dse2018.03.056
UDC 314.84
JEL CLASSIFICATION: J11

P.E. Shevchuk
PhD (Economics), Leading scientist
Ptoukha Institute for Demography and Social
Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
01032, Ukraine, Kyiv, blvd Taras Shevchenko, 60
E-mail: pavlo-shevchuk@ukr.net

THE LIFE TABLES CONSTRUCTION AT SUBREGIONAL LEVEL
Section: DEMOGRAPHIC PROCESSES
Language: Ukrainian
Abstract: In connection with the expansion of powers of local authority, there is a growing need for an adequate assessment of the socio-economic situation at the grassroots level, including its demographic component. The problem faced by researchers in calculating survival rates for small populations is the uncertainty of such estimates, which appears from the stochastic nature of demographic processes. When calculating the life tables for small populations, there is a growing need for a clear outline of the boundaries of confidence intervals in which indicators can exist. There are two approaches to solve this problem: finding the standard error with the corresponding formulas and finding the boundaries of confidence intervals based on the modelling of the death numbers via the Monte Carlo method. More common in the practice of statistical departments is the method developed by Ch.L. Chiang. But he does not take into account the contribution of the open age interval. This problem has found its solution in the works of P.B.S. Silcocks et al. and E. Lo et al. In this study data on the age structure and vital statistics of several administrative districts of Ukraine for the period of 2002–2015 were used. Taking into account the distribution by sex and urban-rural areas, 364 life tables for populations from 2810 to 46113 persons were investigated. The standard error has not exceeded 4.5 years for the expected life expectancy at birth. The minimum value of the standard error was 0.7 years for the population of 37–42 thousand persons. For the population more than 40 thousand standard error does not exceed 0.85 years. For the life tables in the respective administrative regions (oblasts), the standard error of the expected life expectancy at birth did not exceed 0.36 years for the population of about 200 thousand persons. The open age interval gives an additional contribution to the dispersion of the life expectancy at birth from 10 to 20 % in more than half of the studied tables. It is also shown that the point estimates of the life expectancy by districts of even the same region does not always give a precise idea, in which of them mortality is actually lower because of too wide confidence intervals.
Key words: life table, standard error, confidence interval.
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