This paper exploits the first two waves of NIDS to describe the socioeconomic profile of mortality and to assess whether self-rated health status is predictive of mortality between waves. Mortality rates in NIDS are in line with estimates from official death notification data and display the expected hump of excess mortality in early and middle adulthood due to AIDS, with the excess peaking earlier for women than for men. We find evidence of a socioeconomic gradient in mortality with higher rates of mortality for individuals from asset poor households and with lower levels of education. Consistent with evidence from many industrialized countries and a few developing countries, we find self-rated health to be a significant predictor of two year mortality, an association that remains after controlling for socioeconomic status and several other subjective and objective measures of health.

This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. ECO/WKP(2017)81 Unclassified English-Or. English ECO/WKP(2017)81 2 OECD Working Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed are those of the author(s). Working Papers describe preliminary results or research in progress by the author(s) and are published to stimulate discussion on a broad range of issues on which the OECD works.

Organisation de Coopération et de Développement Économiques Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 11-Dec-2017 ___________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________ English-Or. English ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT DEEPENING REGIONAL INTEGRATION WITHIN THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY (SADC) ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT WORKING PAPERS No. 1450 By Falilou Fall and Boingotlo Gasealahwe OECD Working Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed are those of the author(s).