Alyson Van Raalte
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 298693 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Alyson Van Raalte |
| PRENOMES | Alyson |
| SOBRENOME | Van Raalte |
| ASSINATURA | VAN RAALTE A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0676-8921 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 28 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 165 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 28 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2011 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
From Lifespan Inequality to Lifespan Inequity
This article introduces a comprehensive framework for defining and quantifying lifespan inequity within a population, grounded in the capability approach. Lifespan inequity (i.e., unfair inequality) is defined as lifespan deprivation due to premature mortality in a life table distribution of ages at death. We introduce the concept of the Minimally Adequate Length of Life as the threshold distinguishing premature deaths from lifespans of “normal l…
Evolution of Widowhood Lifespan and Its Gender and Educational Inequalities in Finland Over Three Decades
Widowhood is a disruptive life event, and in aging societies, increased numbers of individuals are potentially exposed to it. Yet, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the demography of widowhood. Using total population data with information on marital and cohabiting unions, discrete-time event-history analysis, and incidence-based multistate life tables, we analyze lifetime risk of widowhood, mean age at becoming widowed, widowhood expectanc…
The contribution of childhood adversity to adult socioeconomic gradients in mortality
These results support that childhood adversity is an important determinant of inequalities in mortality. The size of their contribution is equivalent to established behavioural risk factors. Taking a life course approach might provide important policy entry points to mitigate health inequalities
Response to Carl Schmertmann Commentary—Drawing Cohort Profiles From Period Data
Commentary: Commentary on van Raalte et al.’s “The Dangers of Drawing Cohort Profiles From Period Data: A Research Note”, https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/61/4/967/390018/Commentary-on-van-Raalte-et-al-s-The-Dangers-of
Subnational contribution to life expectancy and life span variation changes
BACKGROUND The 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. OBJECTIVE We 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. METHODS A decomposition of the change in the national life expectan…
Flexible transition timing in discrete-time multistate life tables using Markov chains with rewards
Discrete-time multistate life tables are attractive because they are easier to understand and apply in comparison with their continuous-time counterparts. While such models are based on a discrete time grid, it is often useful to calculate derived magnitudes (e.g. state occupation times), under assumptions which posit that transitions take place at other times, such as mid-period. Unfortunately, currently available models allow very few choices a…
Educational inequalities in life expectancy
The Dangers of Drawing Cohort Profiles From Period Data
Drawing cohort profiles and cohort forecasts from grids of age–period data is common practice in demography. In this research note, we (1) show how demographic measures artificially fluctuate when calculated from the diagonals of age–period rates because of timing and cohort-size bias, (2) estimate the magnitude of these biases, and (3) illustrate how prediction intervals for cohort indicators of mortality may become implausible when drawn from L…
A distributional approach to measuring lifespan stratification
The study of the mortality differences between groups has traditionally focused on metrics that describe average levels of mortality, for example life expectancy and standardized mortality rates. Additional insights can be gained by using statistical distance metrics to examine differences in lifespan distributions between groups. Here, we use a distance metric, the non-overlap index, to capture the sociological concept of stratification, which e…
Inequalities in Retirement Life Span in the United States
Our multistate approach provides an accurate and comprehensive picture of the retirement life span of older Americans over the past two decades. Such findings should be considered in high-level discussions on Social Security. Potential reforms such as raising the eligibility age or cutting benefits may have unexpected implications for different social groups due to their differential effects on retirement initiation and reentry dynamics
The Cross-sectional Average Inequality in Lifespan (CAL†)
Lifespan variation is a key metric of mortality that describes both individual uncertainty about the length of life and heterogeneity in population health. We propose a novel and timely lifespan variation measure, which we call the cross-sectional average inequality in lifespan, or CAL†. This new index provides an alternative perspective on the analysis of lifespan inequality by combining the mortality histories of all cohorts present in a cross-…
The impact of income definitions on mortality inequalities
Income is a strong predictor of adult mortality. Measuring income is not as simple as it may sound. It can be conceptualized at the individual or the household level, with the former better reflecting an individual's earning ability, and the latter better capturing living standards. Furthermore, respondents are often grouped into income categories based on their positions in the income distribution, and this operationalization can be done on the …
What have we learned about mortality patterns over the past 25 years
However much of what is published today in field journals could just as easily appear in neighbouring disciplinary journals, as disciplinary boundaries are shrinking
Diversification in causes of death in low-mortality countries
INTRODUCTION: An important role of public health organisations is to monitor indicators of variation, so as to disclose underlying inequality in health improvement. In industrialised societies, more individuals than ever are reaching older ages and have become more homogeneous in their age at death. This has led to a decrease in lifespan variation, with substantial implications for the reduction of health inequalities. We focus on a new form of v…
The increasing lifespan variation gradient by area-level deprivation
APC curvature plots
The analysis of age-period-cohort (APC) patterns of vital rate changes over time is of great importance for understanding demographic phenomena. Given the limitations of statistical modeling, the use of graphical analyses is often regarded as a more transp
Is the age difference between partners related to women's earnings
Women earn less than men at most career stages. Explanations for a gender gap in wages include gender differences in the allocation of household and domestic work. At the family level, a marital age difference is an important shared characteristic that mig
The case for monitoring life-span inequality
Focus on variation in age at death, not just average age
Potential gains in life expectancy by reducing inequality of lifespans in Denmark
Since 1960, Danish improvements in life expectancy and lifespan equality were halted by smoking-related mortality in those born 1919-1939, while also reductions in old-age cardiovascular mortality held back lifespan equality. The comparison with Sweden suggests that Denmark can reduce inequality in lifespans and increase life expectancy through a consistent policy target: reducing cancer and infant mortality
Lifespan Dispersion in Times of Life Expectancy Fluctuation
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have experienced considerable instability in mortality since the 1960s. Long periods of stagnating life expectancy were followed by rapid increases in life expectancy and, in some cases, even more rapid declines, before more recent periods of improvement. These trends have been well documented, but to date, no study has comprehensively explored trends in lifespan variation. We improved such analyses by incorporati…
The German East-West Mortality Difference
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, mortality was considerably higher in the former East Germany than in West Germany. The gap narrowed rapidly after German reunification. The convergence was particularly strong for women, to the point that Eastern women aged 50–69 now have lower mortality despite lower incomes and worse overall living conditions. Prior research has shown that lower smoking rates among East German female cohorts born in the 1940s…
Decomposing Current Mortality Differences Into Initial Differences and Differences in Trends
This study proposes a new decomposition method that permits a difference in an aggregate measure at a final time point to be split into additive components corresponding to the initial differences in the event rates of the measure and differences in trends in these underlying event rates. For instance, when studying divergence in life expectancy, this method allows researchers to more easily contrast age-specific mortality trends between populati…
The role of smoking on mortality compression
Adult lifespan variation has been stagnant since the 1960s in most developed countries, despite increases in longevity. However, national averages mask large socioeconomic differences. In Finland lifespan variation among the highest occupational class has
Lifespan Variation by Occupational Class
Cross-sectional analyses of adult lifespan variation have found an inverse association between socioeconomic position and lifespan variation, but the trends by social class are unknown. We investigated trends in lifespan variation over four decades (1971–2010) by occupational social class (manual, lower nonmanual, upper nonmanual, other) using Finnish register data. We performed age and cause-of-death decompositions of lifespan variation for each…
Perturbation Analysis of Indices of Lifespan Variability
A number of indices exist to calculate lifespan variation, each with different underlying properties. Here, we present new formulae for the response of seven of these indices to changes in the underlying mortality schedule (life disparity, Gini coefficient, standard deviation, variance, Theil’s index, mean logarithmic deviation, and interquartile range). We derive each of these indices from an absorbing Markov chain formulation of the life table,…
Perturbation Analysis of Indices of Lifespan Variability
A number of indices exist to calculate lifespan variation, each with different underlying properties. Here, we present new formulae for the response of seven of these indices to changes in the underlying mortality schedule (life disparity, Gini coefficient, standard deviation, variance, Theil’s index, mean logarithmic deviation, and interquartile range). We derive each of these indices from an absorbing Markov chain formulation of the life table,…
Lifespan Dispersion in Times of Life Expectancy Fluctuation
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have experienced considerable instability in mortality since the 1960s. Long periods of stagnating life expectancy were followed by rapid increases in life expectancy and, in some cases, even more rapid declines, before more recent periods of improvement. These trends have been well documented, but to date, no study has comprehensively explored trends in lifespan variation. We improved such analyses by incorporati…
Lifespan Variation by Occupational Class
Cross-sectional analyses of adult lifespan variation have found an inverse association between socioeconomic position and lifespan variation, but the trends by social class are unknown. We investigated trends in lifespan variation over four decades (1971–2010) by occupational social class (manual, lower nonmanual, upper nonmanual, other) using Finnish register data. We performed age and cause-of-death decompositions of lifespan variation for each…
The increasing lifespan variation gradient by area-level deprivation
Immigrant Fertility
In this paper, we contribute to the analysis of fertility differentials between female migrants and the native‐born by examining the transition to first child using event history analysis. We use event history as a quantitative translation of the life‐course approach. The data examined are the Italian Families and Social Subjects (FSS) survey, conducted in 2003, and the Russian Parents and Children, Men and Women in Family and Society survey, con…
The Cross-sectional Average Inequality in Lifespan (CAL†)
Lifespan variation is a key metric of mortality that describes both individual uncertainty about the length of life and heterogeneity in population health. We propose a novel and timely lifespan variation measure, which we call the cross-sectional average inequality in lifespan, or CAL†. This new index provides an alternative perspective on the analysis of lifespan inequality by combining the mortality histories of all cohorts present in a cross-…
Is the age difference between partners related to women's earnings
Women earn less than men at most career stages. Explanations for a gender gap in wages include gender differences in the allocation of household and domestic work. At the family level, a marital age difference is an important shared characteristic that mig
A distributional approach to measuring lifespan stratification
The study of the mortality differences between groups has traditionally focused on metrics that describe average levels of mortality, for example life expectancy and standardized mortality rates. Additional insights can be gained by using statistical distance metrics to examine differences in lifespan distributions between groups. Here, we use a distance metric, the non-overlap index, to capture the sociological concept of stratification, which e…
The German East-West Mortality Difference
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, mortality was considerably higher in the former East Germany than in West Germany. The gap narrowed rapidly after German reunification. The convergence was particularly strong for women, to the point that Eastern women aged 50–69 now have lower mortality despite lower incomes and worse overall living conditions. Prior research has shown that lower smoking rates among East German female cohorts born in the 1940s…
The Dangers of Drawing Cohort Profiles From Period Data
Drawing cohort profiles and cohort forecasts from grids of age–period data is common practice in demography. In this research note, we (1) show how demographic measures artificially fluctuate when calculated from the diagonals of age–period rates because of timing and cohort-size bias, (2) estimate the magnitude of these biases, and (3) illustrate how prediction intervals for cohort indicators of mortality may become implausible when drawn from L…
Inequalities in Retirement Life Span in the United States
Our multistate approach provides an accurate and comprehensive picture of the retirement life span of older Americans over the past two decades. Such findings should be considered in high-level discussions on Social Security. Potential reforms such as raising the eligibility age or cutting benefits may have unexpected implications for different social groups due to their differential effects on retirement initiation and reentry dynamics
Decomposing Current Mortality Differences Into Initial Differences and Differences in Trends
This study proposes a new decomposition method that permits a difference in an aggregate measure at a final time point to be split into additive components corresponding to the initial differences in the event rates of the measure and differences in trends in these underlying event rates. For instance, when studying divergence in life expectancy, this method allows researchers to more easily contrast age-specific mortality trends between populati…
What have we learned about mortality patterns over the past 25 years
However much of what is published today in field journals could just as easily appear in neighbouring disciplinary journals, as disciplinary boundaries are shrinking
APC curvature plots
The analysis of age-period-cohort (APC) patterns of vital rate changes over time is of great importance for understanding demographic phenomena. Given the limitations of statistical modeling, the use of graphical analyses is often regarded as a more transp
Subnational contribution to life expectancy and life span variation changes
BACKGROUND The 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. OBJECTIVE We 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. METHODS A decomposition of the change in the national life expectan…
Flexible transition timing in discrete-time multistate life tables using Markov chains with rewards
Discrete-time multistate life tables are attractive because they are easier to understand and apply in comparison with their continuous-time counterparts. While such models are based on a discrete time grid, it is often useful to calculate derived magnitudes (e.g. state occupation times), under assumptions which posit that transitions take place at other times, such as mid-period. Unfortunately, currently available models allow very few choices a…
The role of smoking on mortality compression
Adult lifespan variation has been stagnant since the 1960s in most developed countries, despite increases in longevity. However, national averages mask large socioeconomic differences. In Finland lifespan variation among the highest occupational class has
The contribution of childhood adversity to adult socioeconomic gradients in mortality
These results support that childhood adversity is an important determinant of inequalities in mortality. The size of their contribution is equivalent to established behavioural risk factors. Taking a life course approach might provide important policy entry points to mitigate health inequalities
Response to Carl Schmertmann Commentary—Drawing Cohort Profiles From Period Data
Commentary: Commentary on van Raalte et al.’s “The Dangers of Drawing Cohort Profiles From Period Data: A Research Note”, https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/61/4/967/390018/Commentary-on-van-Raalte-et-al-s-The-Dangers-of
Educational inequalities in life expectancy
More variation in lifespan in lower educated groups
BACKGROUND: Whereas it is well established that people with a lower socio-economic position have a shorter average lifespan, it is less clear what the variability surrounding these averages is. We set out to examine whether lower educated groups face greater variation in lifespans in addition to having a shorter life expectancy, in order to identify entry points for policies to reduce the impact of socio-economic position on mortality. METHODS: W…
Life expectancy and disparity
OBJECTIVES: To determine the contribution of progress in averting premature deaths to the increase in life expectancy and the decline in lifespan variation. DESIGN: International comparison of national life table data from the Human Mortality Database. SETTING: 40 developed countries and regions, 1840-2009. POPULATION: Men and women of all ages. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: We use two summary measures of mortality: life expectancy and life disparity. Li…
Immigrant Fertility
In this paper, we contribute to the analysis of fertility differentials between female migrants and the native‐born by examining the transition to first child using event history analysis. We use event history as a quantitative translation of the life‐course approach. The data examined are the Italian Families and Social Subjects (FSS) survey, conducted in 2003, and the Russian Parents and Children, Men and Women in Family and Society survey, con…
Perturbation Analysis of Indices of Lifespan Variability
A number of indices exist to calculate lifespan variation, each with different underlying properties. Here, we present new formulae for the response of seven of these indices to changes in the underlying mortality schedule (life disparity, Gini coefficient, standard deviation, variance, Theil’s index, mean logarithmic deviation, and interquartile range). We derive each of these indices from an absorbing Markov chain formulation of the life table,…
Lifespan Variation by Occupational Class
Cross-sectional analyses of adult lifespan variation have found an inverse association between socioeconomic position and lifespan variation, but the trends by social class are unknown. We investigated trends in lifespan variation over four decades (1971–2010) by occupational social class (manual, lower nonmanual, upper nonmanual, other) using Finnish register data. We performed age and cause-of-death decompositions of lifespan variation for each…
The role of smoking on mortality compression
Adult lifespan variation has been stagnant since the 1960s in most developed countries, despite increases in longevity. However, national averages mask large socioeconomic differences. In Finland lifespan variation among the highest occupational class has
The German East-West Mortality Difference
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, mortality was considerably higher in the former East Germany than in West Germany. The gap narrowed rapidly after German reunification. The convergence was particularly strong for women, to the point that Eastern women aged 50–69 now have lower mortality despite lower incomes and worse overall living conditions. Prior research has shown that lower smoking rates among East German female cohorts born in the 1940s…
Decomposing Current Mortality Differences Into Initial Differences and Differences in Trends
This study proposes a new decomposition method that permits a difference in an aggregate measure at a final time point to be split into additive components corresponding to the initial differences in the event rates of the measure and differences in trends in these underlying event rates. For instance, when studying divergence in life expectancy, this method allows researchers to more easily contrast age-specific mortality trends between populati…
The case for monitoring life-span inequality
Focus on variation in age at death, not just average age
Potential gains in life expectancy by reducing inequality of lifespans in Denmark
Since 1960, Danish improvements in life expectancy and lifespan equality were halted by smoking-related mortality in those born 1919-1939, while also reductions in old-age cardiovascular mortality held back lifespan equality. The comparison with Sweden suggests that Denmark can reduce inequality in lifespans and increase life expectancy through a consistent policy target: reducing cancer and infant mortality
Lifespan Dispersion in Times of Life Expectancy Fluctuation
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have experienced considerable instability in mortality since the 1960s. Long periods of stagnating life expectancy were followed by rapid increases in life expectancy and, in some cases, even more rapid declines, before more recent periods of improvement. These trends have been well documented, but to date, no study has comprehensively explored trends in lifespan variation. We improved such analyses by incorporati…
The increasing lifespan variation gradient by area-level deprivation
APC curvature plots
The analysis of age-period-cohort (APC) patterns of vital rate changes over time is of great importance for understanding demographic phenomena. Given the limitations of statistical modeling, the use of graphical analyses is often regarded as a more transp
Is the age difference between partners related to women's earnings
Women earn less than men at most career stages. Explanations for a gender gap in wages include gender differences in the allocation of household and domestic work. At the family level, a marital age difference is an important shared characteristic that mig
Diversification in causes of death in low-mortality countries
INTRODUCTION: An important role of public health organisations is to monitor indicators of variation, so as to disclose underlying inequality in health improvement. In industrialised societies, more individuals than ever are reaching older ages and have become more homogeneous in their age at death. This has led to a decrease in lifespan variation, with substantial implications for the reduction of health inequalities. We focus on a new form of v…
The impact of income definitions on mortality inequalities
Income is a strong predictor of adult mortality. Measuring income is not as simple as it may sound. It can be conceptualized at the individual or the household level, with the former better reflecting an individual's earning ability, and the latter better capturing living standards. Furthermore, respondents are often grouped into income categories based on their positions in the income distribution, and this operationalization can be done on the …
What have we learned about mortality patterns over the past 25 years
However much of what is published today in field journals could just as easily appear in neighbouring disciplinary journals, as disciplinary boundaries are shrinking
Inequalities in Retirement Life Span in the United States
Our multistate approach provides an accurate and comprehensive picture of the retirement life span of older Americans over the past two decades. Such findings should be considered in high-level discussions on Social Security. Potential reforms such as raising the eligibility age or cutting benefits may have unexpected implications for different social groups due to their differential effects on retirement initiation and reentry dynamics
The Cross-sectional Average Inequality in Lifespan (CAL†)
Lifespan variation is a key metric of mortality that describes both individual uncertainty about the length of life and heterogeneity in population health. We propose a novel and timely lifespan variation measure, which we call the cross-sectional average inequality in lifespan, or CAL†. This new index provides an alternative perspective on the analysis of lifespan inequality by combining the mortality histories of all cohorts present in a cross-…
Educational inequalities in life expectancy
The Dangers of Drawing Cohort Profiles From Period Data
Drawing cohort profiles and cohort forecasts from grids of age–period data is common practice in demography. In this research note, we (1) show how demographic measures artificially fluctuate when calculated from the diagonals of age–period rates because of timing and cohort-size bias, (2) estimate the magnitude of these biases, and (3) illustrate how prediction intervals for cohort indicators of mortality may become implausible when drawn from L…
A distributional approach to measuring lifespan stratification
The study of the mortality differences between groups has traditionally focused on metrics that describe average levels of mortality, for example life expectancy and standardized mortality rates. Additional insights can be gained by using statistical distance metrics to examine differences in lifespan distributions between groups. Here, we use a distance metric, the non-overlap index, to capture the sociological concept of stratification, which e…
Response to Carl Schmertmann Commentary—Drawing Cohort Profiles From Period Data
Commentary: Commentary on van Raalte et al.’s “The Dangers of Drawing Cohort Profiles From Period Data: A Research Note”, https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/61/4/967/390018/Commentary-on-van-Raalte-et-al-s-The-Dangers-of
Subnational contribution to life expectancy and life span variation changes
BACKGROUND The 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. OBJECTIVE We 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. METHODS A decomposition of the change in the national life expectan…
Flexible transition timing in discrete-time multistate life tables using Markov chains with rewards
Discrete-time multistate life tables are attractive because they are easier to understand and apply in comparison with their continuous-time counterparts. While such models are based on a discrete time grid, it is often useful to calculate derived magnitudes (e.g. state occupation times), under assumptions which posit that transitions take place at other times, such as mid-period. Unfortunately, currently available models allow very few choices a…
Global Health Care Issues (22 obras) · Health disparities and outcomes (22 obras) · Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management (21 obras) · Demography (20 obras) · Sociology (18 obras) · Population (17 obras) · Medicine (13 obras) · Demography (12 obras) · Life expectancy (12 obras) · Gerontology (11 obras)