Volume 13 - Article 19 | Pages 485–520  

Cause-specific contributions to sex differences in adult mortality among whites and African Americans between 1960 and 1995

By Irma T. Elo, Greg L. Drevenstedt

This article is part of the Special Collection 4 "Human Mortality over Age, Time, Sex, and Place: The 1^st HMD Symposium"

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe trends in sex differences in mortality in young adulthood and in middle age among African Americans and whites in the United States between 1960 and 1995. We examine trends in all-cause mortality and estimate the contribution of leading causes of death to the change in the sex difference in mortality over time.
Between 1960 and 1995 the sex difference in mortality increased for African Americans and whites at ages 15-39 and declined for whites but increased for African Americans at ages 40-64. Our results reveal considerable variation in the sex difference in mortality by cause of death as well as in the contribution various causes of death make to the change in the sex mortality difference over time.

Author's Affiliation

• Irma T. Elo - University of Pennsylvania, United States of America EMAIL
• Greg L. Drevenstedt - University of Pennsylvania, United States of America EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Cause-specific contributions to black-white differences in male mortality from 1960 to 1995
Special Collection 2 - Article 10

Immigrant mortality advantage in the United States during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic
Volume 50 - Article 7

Contribution of smoking-attributable mortality to life-expectancy differences by marital status among Finnish men and women, 1971-2010
Volume 36 - Article 8

Age patterns of racial/ethnic/nativity differences in disability and physical functioning in the United States
Volume 31 - Article 17

Educational differences in all-cause mortality by marital status: Evidence from Bulgaria, Finland and the United States
Volume 19 - Article 60

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