Trends in United States Life Expectancy and Disability Above Age 50: Delayed Onset, Improved Recovery, Mortality Change, or Compositional Change?

Timothy Riffe , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Neil Mehta, University of Michigan
Daniel Schneider, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Mikko Myrskyla, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Life expectancy with and without disability at older ages in the United States has increased slowly in recent decades. It is unknown whether changes in disability onset, recovery, mortality, or compositional change drives this trend. We use the US Health and Retirement Study to estimate transition probabilities between disability states and state-specific death probabilities, for the years 1996, 2006, and 2014. We calculate life expectancy with and without disability at age 50 using a multistate Markov model. We decompose the change in expectancies into components for onset, recovery, mortality, and compositional effects. Mortality change has been the main driver of mean time spent with and without disability. Disability recovery rates are a strong lever to increase life expectancy and shift years lived in disability to good health. The effects of educational expansion have been modest, but hold potential to fuel further increases in life expectancy for both males and females.

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 Presented in Session 177. Gains and Gaps in Life Expectancy