Data Analysis and Related Applications, Volume 2

18Decomposing Differences in Life Expectancy With and Without Disability: The Case of Czechia

The improvement in mortality is reflected in the fact that people have a longer life expectancy. At the same time, healthy life expectancy has been increasing. Nevertheless, the growth in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy is not exactly the same. What is the part of life that people live on average in good health without a disability? Are we adding years to life or life to years? The aim of this chapter is to compare life expectancy and life expectancy without disability in the case of Czechia. The next part of the evaluation of the mortality and the health level of the Czech population deals with decomposing differences in healthy life expectancies into the additive contribution of the mortality versus the effect of a disability, or the effect of change in health, of different age groups. The decomposition method was originally developed with regard to the Sullivan method that calculates healthy life expectancy and is an extension of the Arriaga method (1984) that decomposes differences in overall life expectancy. Together with prolonging a human life, measured by life expectancy, we observed the increase in healthy life indicators. The health status, and thus quality of life improved in Czechia during the period, both in men and women.

18.1. Introduction

Life expectancy is undoubtedly the most widely used indicator expressing the mortality of the population for a given ...