>when male life expectancy has plunged to 57 years . . .
I wonder how reliable this fact is, though. From what I've seen, the Russian
mortality crisis reflected a statistical trend from 1987 to 1994, mostly
among males in the 30-60 age group. Infant mortality and death rates among
older males didn't change that much (although birth rates also plunged).
There was also an improvement in male life expectancy in the decade prior to
1990. It seems to me that a complicating factor would be the extraordinary
bulge in the Russian birth cohort from the 5-year period preceding World War
II. I don't have the stats to do the checking, but it may be that a much
less drastic decline in male life expectancy has been amplified out of
proportion by a half-century old demographic blip.
As of 1990, the Russian male cohort born in the five years between 1936 and
1940 was about 50% larger than that born in the previous five years and over
2/3 larger than that born in the subsequent five year period.
A second complicating factor could be the huge military casualities suffered
by the Soviet Union in World War II. For example, in 1990 there were only
about half as many males as females in the 65-69 age group. Ceterus paribus,
there would be less deaths among males in the 70-75 age group during the
first half of the 1990s simply because there would be less males.
To repeat: all this suggests to me not that there hasn't been a
deterioration in male life expectancy in Russia, but that the steepness of
the decline MAY have been exagerated due to demographic factors totally
unconnected with the demise of the Soviet Union.
This is a _question_, not a conclusion.
Regards,
Tom Walker
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