Mortality in Russia: Evidence from Micro Data

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Mortality in Russia Evidence from Micro Data

• Irina Denisova
• Center for Economic and Financial Research at the
  New Economic School, Moscow

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Motivation

• Relatively high and only slightly declining
  within the latest decade mortality rates
• Mortality crisis in 1992-1994
• High mortality rates among working age population
• Factors behind?
• Environmental
• Behavioral

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Literature

• Two branches of literature
• Aggregate data analysis (mortality registration
  data, census data)
• Micro data analysis (follow-up surveys, large
  panel surveys)
• Russia
• Aggregate data
• Basic patterns of mortality crisis
• Male Cohort within US Lipid Research Clinics
  Program

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Research questions

• What are the determinants of mortality rates
  (hazard and survival rates)?
• What is the role of different groups of factors?
• hazardous behavior (negative investment into HC)
• income
• relative income (relative deprivation and
  unfairness)
• stress factors
• poor social capital, incl. family characteristics
• job-related factors

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Data

• Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey
• Waves 5 14 (1994 to 2005)
• Nationally representative, about 5,000 households
  and 10,000 individuals in each round
• Panel structure though attrition is a serious
  issue
• If a household member is missing, reasons for
  being not a hh member
• Moved out, another address
• Separate hh now, same address
• Death (cause of death since 2001)
• Other reasons

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Methodology

• Survival analysis
• Eliminates estimation bias due to non-normality
  of time to event and right-censoring
• Hazards are estimated for uncensored and
  survivals for censored
• Allows using an unbalanced panel
• Proportional hazard model
• Parametric PH model, Gompertz specification
• ?0(t) exp(?t) exp(ß0)
• Cox PH model specification (non-parametric
  baseline)

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Methodology

• Explanatory variables (X) include
• Gender
• Education and qualification
• Settlement type (urban vs rural)
• Smoking, alcohol consumption vs physical
  exercises (hazardous vs healthy behavior)
• Characteristics of diet
• Income decile
• Relative income position (relative deprivation
  and unfairness)
• Relative respect and power positions
• Stress factors (years in unemployment, concern
  about getting necessities, satisfaction with
  life)
• Job characteristics (hazardous working
  conditions)
• Social capital, incl. family characteristics
  (family size, marital status, children)
• Two samples adults and adults 20-60 years

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Baseline survival function
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Results

• Subjective perception of relative deprivation is
  an important determinant
• Higher income deciles are correlated with longer
  life (could be health effect good health brings
  higher income and longer life)
• Smoking survives all specifications as a
  detrimental factor
• Heavy alcohol consumption also matters
• Better education is beneficial
• Role family social capital is not very pronounced
  and operates in opposite directions