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Dynamics of life expectancy change during the transition from communism in the Western Balkan

Dijana Spasenoska, London School of Economics

The countries of Western Balkan experienced a political transition from communism to democracy, accompanied by socio-economic changes, wars and civil unrests. Health as a social phenomenon directly and indirectly is affected by these changes. But unlike other European countries that have experienced declines in life-expectancy during the period of transition, the countries of Western Balkan have experienced a continuous increase at different rates. The extent of LE differences between the countries and over time has generally been understudied, predominantly due to the lack of electronically available data. This study uses an original data set of life-tables for a period of 40 years, computed based on mortality data from civil registers from each of the 8 countries, assessed for accuracy and completeness to study the LE trends over time. Decomposition analysis is used to quantify the contributions of age and causes of death to the observed trends. Preliminary results show heterogeneity in the LE improvements over time at both national and sub-national level. This study’s results are important because they give a detailed description of the mortality differential emerging during the transition in the Balkan and are set within the greater need to understand the linkage between social determinants and health.

Keywords: Mortality, Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS), Cross-country comparative analyses, Decomposition analysis/methods

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P10.