Subnational contribution to life expectancy and life span variation changes: Evidence from the United States

Abstract

BACKGROUNDThe US life expectancy has been stagnating in recent decades, and along with this, the time trends of life span variation have shown stagnation and even increases with respect to historical levels. OBJECTIVEWe aim to disentangle contributions from subnational levels (US regions) to national changes in life expectancy and life span variation in 2010-2019 and 2019-2020. METHODSA decomposition of the change in the national life expectancy and life disparity into the contribution of changing mortality and population structure among subnational regions is presented. The US Census regions are the Midwest, Northeast, South, and West. RESULTSFrom 2010 to 2019, the South substantially contributed to the life span variation increase due to increasing mortality contributions. The old-age survival improvements across all regions further contributed to increasing life span variation at the national level. Different population growth patterns across regions, especially at older ages, are a further source of change in national life span variation and life expectancy. From 2019 to 2020, during